Cleantech and Sustainability

SJF is a venture capital leader in the fields of cleantech and sustainability. For more than 10 years, the SJF team has been launching, operating, and investing in cleantech and sustainable businesses, including solar, recycling, energy efficiency and technology, remediation and health and wellness companies. SJF views ‘cleantech’ and ‘sustainability’ less as sectors and more as innovation strategies across all resource-intensive sectors of the economy (energy, water, materials, transportation, building, agriculture, and consumer products). SJF partners with entrepreneurs who are leveraging new technologies, software and web platforms, and unique business strategies to win market share from incumbent, inefficient, and carbon-intensive competitors.

SJF’s cleantech investment strategy differs from the strategies employed by a number of other funds. Accordingly, SJF believes it is helpful to first indicate those areas in which it does not invest, including:

Start-up or early stage companies without commercial revenues
Capital intensive companies requiring more than $25MM in equity
‘Upstream’ technology companies without market validation

Commercialization investments in the SJF portfolio that represent cleantech and sustainability include CleanScapes, Rustic Crust and Salvage Direct in the recycling, organics and asset management industries; B.B. Hobbs in the water efficiency and sustainable agriculture industry; and EvCo Research and SelecTech in recycled materials and green building products. SJF’s expertise in business and Web-enhanced services and consumer brands fits well with its approach of focusing on commercialization, consolidation, and integration firms that can become national companies. These firms may also become significant ‘green jobs’ generators as they create new employment in sales, assembly, installation and multiple other positions. As examples, in aggregate, groSolar and CleanScapes have grown from 125 employees at the time of SJF investment to over 415 employees currently.

Some representative sectors of interest to SJF include (but are not limited to):

Energy efficiency, demand reduction and response, and building automation; particularly strategies with strong economics and rapid adoption
Smart infrastructure repair and upgrades, including remote analysis, trenchless upgrade, wireless and robotic systems and other strategies for electric, water, wastewater, and transportation systems
Renewable energy, particularly developers, installers and integrators of solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass systems
Value-added recycling, reuse and remanufacturing, including electronics, specialty materials, and organics
Green building technologies and services, including lighting, HVAC, materials, monitoring and controls and other building systems
Agricultural technology, aquaculture and sustainable food processing, particularly reducing water, fertilizer and chemical inputs, increasing yields, and improving food quality and safety
Water and wastewater technologies and services, including leak detection and repair and distributed vs. centralized systems
Commercial or industrial energy or waste recovery systems, biomass energy generation, combined heat and power, or solar thermal systems
Web-based business models for efficiently connecting suppliers and customers to reduce waste, energy use, pollution or carbon impact, or to recover, reuse and recycle assets at their highest value
Proprietary natural and organic food products and ingredients as well as personal care, bath and body and cosmetics
Health and wellness consumer brands and services