Saturday, March 07, 2009

Doerr Offers Clues on Battery Investment. FXI, WLC.v, GM, F, GDX, HUI, XAU, GOOG, AMZN, AAPL.

In times like these fortunes are started, buy when the blood is on the streets. But where to find new Googles, Goldcorps, Apples and Amazons? Follow the money. What smart people are doing now? We do not mind to take this ride for a test drive and the company is interesting:

"John Doerr, the prominent cleantech venture capitalist for Kleiner Perkins Caufiled & Byers, gave his standard earnest speech before a Senate Committee hearing on how greentech investing can spur the economy on Wednesday morning, GigaOm says. As per usual, he first chided the U.S. for not doing enough to cut carbon emissions and invest in cleantech, and then laid out his broad plan on what to do next.
But, the publication says, Mr. Doerr also mentioned a new “stealth mode” lithium-ion battery maker. He says the unnamed start-up “creates stable, durable lithium ion batteries with higher effective storage capacity” that can power electric vehicles “twice as far, and eventually three times as far, to over 100 miles before recharging.”
Mr. Doerr also gave a few clues on the company’s origins and future plans — supposedly the start-up was found “outside the U.S.,” but is building manufacturing plants in the Midwest and will ship batteries at the end of the year. Mr. Doerr positioned the company as no less than an automotive breakthrough and said: “This technology could be a key driver for the electrification and revitalization of our automotive industry, helping us retain and create many jobs.”
Kleiner has openly invested in electric car companies, like Fisker Automotive, that will use lithium-ion batteries and in energy storage company EEStor .
Kleiner has also previously invested in deals where Khosla Ventures has done early seed stage funding. That firm has backed Sakti3, an Ann Arbor, Mich.-based company developing a next-generation lithium-ion battery for electric vehicles."
More on John Doerr:
John Doerr is a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Together with KPCB's partners, John has backed many of America's best entrepreneurial leaders, including:
Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Eric Schmidt: Google [GOOG]
Jeff Bezos: Amazon [AMZN]
Scott Cook, Bill Campbell: Intuit [INTU]
Andy Bechtolsheim, Scott McNealy, Bill Joy, Vinod Khosla: Sun [SUNW]
And the founders of Compaq, Cypress, Macromedia and Symantec
These ventures have created more than 150,000 new jobs.

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