by Kemila Velan 2.0
SAN FRANCISCO – Are all ventures social ventures? “Yes,” said Jerry Engel, professor at the University of California at Berkeley and general partner at Monitor Venture Partners
, who moderated a panel at the Spring Investor’s Circle Conference on April 21. He cited the definition of socially responsible investing as, “investing in a manner that takes into account the impact of investments on wider society and the natural environment.”
“Investments in new companies are at their lowest in 11 years,” said Engel to a room full of new and experienced members of the socially responsible investment group at the Westin St. Francis Hotel. “There are no exits…the exit doors are closed shut. There are no IPOs right now, they’re dead.”
Cheryl Smith, board chair of the Social Investment Forum The Hard Word dvdrip , countered, “There was an IPO in the last month – Rosetta Stone – but there are definitely not a lot of opportunities for that.”
One company that has become the poster child for a successful socially responsible exit is White Dog Cafe
, founded by Judy Wicks 26 years ago. The company started as a take-out coffee shop, and organically grew into a full-fledged restaurant serving organic food and supporting social causes such as economic justice and global fair trade, environmental sustainability and opposing GMOs.
“An entrepreneur who saw value in the brand bought it in January,” said Wicks during lunch with Amir Alexander Hasson, founder and CEO of United Villages
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, which distributes WiFi to rural village retailers looking for more efficient ways to stock their shops.
Philip Mickelson, director of Investor Relations for ZAP!
, an electric car company, said that his industry is constantly struggling for capital to develop its technology. Established in 1996, ZAP! builds three-wheel cars, among other electric-powered vehicles.
Michael Finney, managing director of Finney Capital In the Electric Mist movie download in San Francisco, already has an investment in an electric motorcycle company, but he has been searching the Bay Area and conferences like these for an energy efficient company that is at the perfect stage for an angel investment.
It might be too late in the game.
“We’ve been here before,” said David Crane, Special Advisor to Governor Schwarzzeneger for Jobs & Economic Growth, who also spoke on the morning panel to discuss prospects for social enterprise. “We’re less sustainable now than we were before.”
Crane said he graduated college in 1975 and returned to his hometown of Evergreen, which was the capital of solar energy development. It was the height of the oil and energy crisis, and his generation was optimistic that they would find the solutions to saving the planet.
Which leaves us with the million-dollar question – is SRI, which includes investments in cleantech and solutions to climate change, just another bubble inevitably heading for a bust?
David Zetland, postdoctoral fellow in natural resource economics and political economy for the University of California at Berkeley, said, “Yes. Last year, I called it a bubble. That’s just how humanity works.”
Zetland writes a blog called Aguanomics.com, which includes an interview with James Lovelock, the 90-year-old who developed the “Gaia” theory: “Most of the ‘green’ stuff is verging on a gigantic scam…It’s not going to do a damn thing about climate change, but it’ll make a lot of money for a lot of people and postpone the moment
of reckoning.'”
Natalie Storie of Storie Enterprises, LLC said she just started learning about socially responsible investing, and she was glad she attended the conference because there are so many new variables to consider in angel investing.
“We used to just focus on traditional investments,” said Storie. She goes on to define “traditional” as the kind of investment that yielded the most amount of money.