U.S. DOE puts out call for more cleantech EIRs

Aiming to accelerate deployment of clean technologies from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to the market, the DOE today put out a new call to venture capitalists with renewed promise of funding.

The DOE plans to expand its current Entrepreneur-In-Residence (EIR) program, introduced this February at the Cleantech Forum in San Francisco, from three National Labs to eight (see New U.S. DOE program links VCs and researchers).

The Department is seeking five more venture capital firms to set up EIR programs at five new National Labs, including:

• Argonne National Laboratory in Argonne, Ill.
• Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, N.Y.
• Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif.
• Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif.
• Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash.

Today’s announcement proposes that each DOE laboratory host one EIR at a time, and that the DOE support this work by providing up to $50,000 for each entrepreneur to help defray salary and other expenses.

Each firm is to match DOE funding and may contribute additional funds to support its entrepreneur’s work.

Each entrepreneur is to be given the opportunity to work directly with the lab’s management and staff to conduct clean technology assessments and identify market opportunities for commercialization. Entrepreneurs and their VC sponsors would negotiate a license to use the laboratory-developed technology and develop a plan to finance a startup business based on the technology.

The entrepreneurs are also asked to recommend policy and procedure modifications at the National Laboratories to improve their success at producing technologies for commercialization.

The five new programs at the new labs are to join programs at:

• National Renewable Energy Laboratory, partnered with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
• Sandia National Laboratory, partnered with ARCH Venture Partners, and
• Oak Ridge National Laboratory, partnered with Foundation Capital

In a statement today, the DOE said its EIR program is "fundamentally changing the way we conduct business by helping our innovations reach the marketplace much faster."