Author: Richard Youngman

Does Shell’s Acquisition of Sonnen Represent our Netscape Moment?

Richard Youngman
Posted on by Richard Youngman
There were milestones on the internet’s journey to becoming what it is today, namely an all-pervasive, essential and normal part of consumer, business  and now, with the rise of IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things), industrial life. In the 1980s and early 1990s, it wasn’t clear-cut that the Internet would become mainstream. Netscape was a critical part of changing that. A web browser company, it brought the power of the Internet to millions and was able to IPO in 1995 with... Read More »

Echoes From the Past: Companies and Themes to Pay Attention to Beyond the APAC 25

Richard Youngman
Posted on by Richard Youngman
Maybe you have been following us closely enough to notice that we have been making a stronger push into the B2B future of industrial innovation ecosystem in Asia over the last year? This initial push will culminate with AsiaConnect week, in which we will host our 1st Cleantech Forum Asia in Singapore on November 13-14, 2018, followed by our invite only Next-Gen Energy & Cross-Border Innovation Summit in Nanjing, China on November 15-16, 2018. Maybe you noticed that, two weeks ago,... Read More »

Mobility, Intelligence, Scooters, Reverse Innovation, and More – Our APAC 25 provides us glimpses of the future

Richard Youngman
Posted on by Richard Youngman
We released our APAC 25 today, representing 25 leading innovative companies from across the region and across the different industrial spheres. The APAC 25 is a new sister list of the Global Cleantech 100 program that we are releasing ahead of our 1st Cleantech Forum Asia in Singapore on November 13-14, 2018. No doubt, just as will always be the case with our flagship Global Cleantech 100 program, the final list of companies would not be any one person’s list... Read More »

Just two of us? Or is anyone else noticing the innovation and venturing news coming from Southeast Asia, of late?

Richard Youngman
Posted on by Richard Youngman
We are a firm believer in the idea that innovation, year on year, is going global, measured by where innovative solutions are emerging from, where demand for them resides, and who is providing the capital for the next-generation of new businesses, transitioning us toward a very different 21st century. Recent years have seen a venture capital industry boom in China, we have seen Slush in Finland becoming one of the biggest tech/innovation conferences in the world (20K people, >2,000 startups,... Read More »

Keep Calm and Carry On: A very British response to Trump’s withdrawal?

Richard Youngman
Posted on by Richard Youngman
When President Trump was elected last November, and again when he was inaugurated in January, I found lots of people wondering and asking out loud how detrimental would this seemingly anti-climate change, pro-fossil fuel President be to the more positive momentum the sustainable innovation world has been feeling of late. Such momentum was built on improving economics and market dynamics for the solution set, built on improving technology and lessons learned from the “gold rush” mentality of cleantech 1.0. The... Read More »

Charting the Future Towards 2032: Why affordable technology can trump the future

Richard Youngman
Posted on by Richard Youngman
Charting the Future Towards 2032 was the theme of our recent 15th Cleantech Forum San Francisco. Some focus was given to the idea of imagining out how things might develop over the next 15 years given our 2017 starting point, itself a result of where the last 15 years has taken us. This three-part blog series was intended to provide some perspectives to help you get set for the year and the years ahead, drawing on my own keynote at... Read More »

Breakthroughs: Just what does it take to make it?

Richard Youngman
Posted on by Richard Youngman
Last week , we were both very surprised and disappointed to hear the news that Aquion Energy, the US battery company who ranked top in our Global Cleantech 100 Expert Panel’s summer assessments, was forced to voluntarily file for chapter 11 to provide the breathing-room to allow it to find a buyer who could take the impressive achievements of the last few years and provide the capital to scale up the manufacturing to finish the job of getting a breakthrough... Read More »

Charting the Future Towards 2032: Three industries to keep an eye on over the next 15 years

Richard Youngman
Posted on by Richard Youngman
Charting the Future Towards 2032 was the theme of our recent 15th Cleantech Forum San Francisco. Some focus was given to the idea of imagining how things might develop over the next 15 years, given our 2017 starting point, itself a result of where the last 15 years has taken us. This three-part blog series is intended to provide some perspectives to help you get set for the year and the years ahead, drawing on my own keynote at Cleantech... Read More »

Charting the Future Towards 2032: Funding the next wave of industrial innovation companies

Richard Youngman
Posted on by Richard Youngman
“Charting the Future Towards 2032” was the theme of our recent 15th Cleantech Forum San Francisco. Some focus was given to the idea of imagining out how things might develop over the next 15 years, given our 2017 starting-point, itself a result of where the  last 15 years has taken us. This three-part blog series will provide some perspectives to help you get set for the year and the years ahead. It will draw on my own keynote from the... Read More »

Scale and speed: China’s USP in cleantech. Solving urban wastewater challenges.

Richard Youngman
Posted on by Richard Youngman
For some years, we have been monitoring the growing number of examples of where Asian and western organizations are coming together to address environmental challenges for mutual economic benefit. In the past 12-18 months, we have felt that there is a definite uptick in the activity levels. This has been confirmed by an analysis we just completed on the 100 companies we will release as the latest edition of the Global Cleantech 100. In the 6th edition, 20 of the... Read More »