The Swedish CleanTech-market : players and financing

摘要

This thesis describes and examines a new line of business, CleanTech. CleanTechudcomprises a wide range of different types of companies and is not yet well defined. Inudthis thesis only the Swedish market is considered, and a variety of players on theudmarket are included to give the most extensive picture of the current situation. Recentudresearch shows that a gap has arisen between governmental financing and privateudequity-investments in CleanTech-companies. This gap occurs mainly in companies inudexpansive phases and causes problems both for the companies and for the line ofudbusiness as a whole.ududTo investigate this gap the Swedish CleanTech-business is described in terms ofudearlier and existing financing, age and size of the companies and their turnover andudprofit. Other players on the market such as networks, governmental support and theudprivate equity-companies are examined and presented. Furthermore a number ofudprivate equity-companies are interviewed about their perception of risk and theirudwillingness to invest in CleanTech-companies. This altogether is used to analyze whyudand where the gap occurs and what actions can be taken to close the gap. The resultsudshow that investments in CleanTech do not have to be high-risk investments. The riskudis instead linked to the maturity and also, of course, the perceived chances of successudfor the company. Thereby the gap could be closed if there are enough CleanTechcompaniesudwith great ideas and enough networks and other links to connect theseudcompanies with the right private equity-companies.