Venture Capitalists in ‘Clean’ Effort

Several Silicon Valley venture capital firms said Tuesday that they were joining California universities, think tanks and energy companies to drive commercialization of “clean” energy technologies.

The alliance is sponsoring a business-plan competition that will award a year of free office space, legal advice, publicity support and sufficient capital to turn “clean technology” ideas in five categories into stand-alone businesses within the state.

Among the sponsors are venture capital firms Draper Fisher Jurvetson, New Enterprise Associates, Foundation Capital, Venrock Associates, Advanced Technology Ventures and Chevron Associates, the venture investing arm of Chevron Corp.

Categories include energy efficiency, renewable energy, “smart” power -- using software to more efficiently manage the power grid -- and transportation and water management.

Backers of the competition said they planned to select 40 business plans in a first round of competition to be completed by late May.

Contestants will then be winnowed down to six over the summer, with a final winner announced by September or October.

Runners-up in the competition will be considered by the venture capital firms for independent investment, sponsors said.

Coordinating the competition are the Clean Technology Advisory Council of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and members of the Northern California alumni club of Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Research backers include Stanford University; UC Berkeley; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and two private think tanks, Electric Power Research Institute Inc. and SRI International.