VantagePoint curbs cleantech fund raising due to lack of interest

Venture capital firm VantagePoint Capital Partners, which made one of the most aggressive bets on backing cleantech startups, has stopped raising a planned $ 1.25 billion fund to put into cleantech companies due to lack of support from limited partners (the pensions and big investors that put money into venture capital funds), according to a report from Dow Jones VentureWire. VantagePoint started raising that fund (VantagePoint CleanTech Partners III) in late 2010.

It’s no surprise that LPs are growing cold on the sector. I discussed this with a panel of investors late last year at the VERGE conference. Salzman tells VentureWire that the reality from the LP community was: “show us the money.” Other firms that have pulled back (slightly or a lot) or changed their strategy to focus on green IT include Mohr Davidow, NEA, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and Kleiner Perkins.

VantagePoint had a few wins, but it also has had many losses. On one hand VantagePoint backed Tesla and Solazyme, which both went public. But the company also backed firms like MiaSole, Serious Energy, Tendril, and Better Place, which have struggled. Bright Source was planning on going public but pulled the IPO in the 11th hour.

Salzman embodied the aggressive all-in approach of cleantech investing. He told me in an interview in late 2011 that “when it comes to greentech investing, it’s basically all or nothing.” And instead of becoming more cautious when the market cooled following the 2008 recession, Salzman and VantagePoint seemed to double down.

VentureWire asks Salzman whether focusing VantagePoint on cleantech was a mistake, and Mr. Salzman tells them: “I wouldn’t admit it if it was.”