KEY POINTS:
New Zealand's brightest and most lucrative ideas and talent may be forced overseas as the country struggles to raise venture capital to develop "cleantech" industries.
At a "clean billions" symposium in Auckland yesterday, business people working in areas such as renewable energy reported how hard it was to get local funding for promising clean technology developments.
Nick Main, chairman of the Business Council for Sustainable Development, said New Zealand was not short on ideas or people working in the green sector, but the country had a problem with capital. "We have to move quickly if we don't want people to come down and take our technology and scientists."
James Watson, a former research scientist, said he had not been able to get funds in New Zealand to develop his business focused on alternatives to petrochemicals.
Instead Dr Watson was successfully introduced to Singaporean funds.
Nick Gerritsen, a director of Aquaflow Bionomic Corporation which is working on making biofuel from algae, said New Zealand had been too slow in taking opportunities.
"Our capital markets have failed ... we come to talkfests but it's about acting ... about investing, not just innovation."
Nick Eady, director of Crest Energy, which aims to harness tidal power in the Kaipara Harbour, said New Zealand did not have a viable capital market and companies would not hang around.
Sean Simpson, co-founder of Lanzatech, which has developed a system to make fuel through the fermentation of waste, said the global markets had to be captured quickly.
"The ideas are there but you don't have people prepared to take risks with millions of dollars ... we need more risk money."
Mr Simpson said his company was fortunate in having secured great investors. The first, providing $100,000, were scientists who owned a small Auckland company and understood what Lanzatech was doing.
Lanzatech then attracted investment from Stephen Tindall and the late Ross Clark, which opened doors to future investments all the way to Khosla Ventures, Vinod Khosla having founded Sun Microsystems.
Mr Tindall said cleantech was attracting huge attention in the US but if New Zealand did not take up the opportunities it would be left behind.
David Clarke, from Cranleigh Merchant Bankers, said global investment in the sector for 2007 was US$148 billion, up almost 50 per cent from the previous year. He noted the biggest New Zealand Government grant to date in greentech was $12 million.
