Area green-tech firms miss out on party
Sep 12, 2007

Sacramento Bee

The Sacramento area is throwing a party this week for many of the world's most important green-technology companies.

But hardly any Sacramento green-tech companies are participating in the GoingGreen conference, prompting some area leaders to fret that the region's small but growing clean-tech industry is missing a valuable opportunity to connect with peers and financiers.

Representatives of several hundred companies, some from as far away as Israel and South Africa, have descended on the University of California, Davis, for the first annual conference. The conference is the brainchild of AlwaysOn, a Silicon Valley Internet media company that specializes in technology, and is led by Tony Perkins, one of the foremost observers of the tech scene.

Perkins, who gained fame as one of the first to predict the popping of the dot-com bubble, has become a fervent believer in green tech. Having attended UC Davis, he chose the school for the GoingGreen conference because he had read that its campus is among the greenest in America.

"Davis is where it's happening," Perkins said as he kicked off the event Monday night at the Mondavi Center. The event ends today.

Greater Sacramento is largely being represented by venture capitalists, angel investors, academicians and association leaders. One of the organizers and speakers is Ed Ring, editor of a Fair Oaks-based Web site devoted to clean-tech issues.

But only two tech companies from the region are being showcased. One was listed as a presenter: SynapSense Corp., a Folsom maker of technology for reducing power consumption at data centers. One made the AlwaysOn GoingGreen 100, a just-announced list of the hottest privately owned green companies: Jadoo Power Inc., a Folsom fuel-cell company.

The scarcity of Sacramento companies at the conference reflects the state of the area's green industry. Sacramento still doesn't have a slew of green companies, and many of them are so young that they may have been frightened off by the $2,000 admission fee, said Nicole Woolsey Biggart, dean of the UC Davis Graduate School of Management.

"It's a much smaller community -- we're still growing up as a business community," she said. "There'll be a lot of Sacramento companies here next year. They'll learn they need to be here."

The management school is co-sponsoring the event, along with the university's Office of Research, and sees the conference as a showcase for the campus' research prowess.

Realizing that the region was in danger of not getting a lot of exposure at the event, area tech leaders quickly raised $20,000 to become an event sponsor and host one of the cocktail parties.

"We didn't want ... people to come here for three days and walk away clueless" about what the Sacramento area has to offer, said J.D. Stack, chief executive of the Sacramento Area Regional Technology Alliance. "We feel we have some momentum going with our clean tech effort."

Addressing the conference again Tuesday, Perkins seemed to acknowledge that the Sacramento region had been overlooked, saying "we learned there are a lot of entrepreneurial organizations here that are doing great things." He then introduced Kristine Mazzei of Valley Vision, who wasn't on the original speakers' list.

Mazzei, whose nonprofit organization is dedicated to regional planning, told the conference that the area is home to more than 70 clean-tech firms, a number that's doubled in three years. She also noted that the Sacramento Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce has launched a commitment to develop 20,000 clean-tech jobs by 2015.

The GoingGreen conference is a networking hub for companies specializing in everything from biofuels to solar panels to eco-friendly building materials. Many in attendance are from Silicon Valley, reflecting the valley's increasing interest in green tech.

"Silicon Valley can turn on a dime and go into clean tech," said Pam Marrone of Marrone Organic Innovations, a Davis biotech firm and one of the few area green companies attending the conference. "We still don't have an incubator (for startups)."

Still, many area leaders said greater Sacramento is well positioned to become a leader in green tech.

Oleg Kaganovich, a venture capitalist in West Sacramento, said green tech remains such a young industry that "no one region is ahead of the game." In fact, because government policy is so important to the development of green technologies, Sacramento may have "a competitive advantage" because it's the state capital, said Kaganovich, a partner in DFJ Frontier, a West Sacramento affiliate of Silicon Valley venture capital giant Draper Fisher Jurvetson.

Ray Lane, a partner with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Beyers, one of the most important venture capital firms in Silicon Valley, said financiers will find Sacramento-area companies whether they participate in conference or not.

"This is a coming-out party for Sacramento's clean tech ecosystem," said Barbara Grant, a partner in Roseville venture capital firm American River Ventures. "I believe what you will see at this time next year will be very different."