Claremont Creek Ventures

ecoATM Wins 2011 Crunchies for Best Clean Tech Startup

Randy Hawks — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:20:12 PST

My hearty congratulations goes to our portfolio company ecoATM, who won The Crunchies Award for Best Clean Tech Startup in 2011 last night. The San Diego-based startup, which makes an intelligent self-serve kiosk to evaluate and purchase used electronics from consumers, bested a field of five finalists that also included Array Power, Alta Energy, EcoMotors and Hara.

The Crunchies, of course, is a big deal. Hosted by GigaOm, Venturebeat and . . .
→ Read full post: ecoATM Wins 2011 Crunchies for Best Clean Tech Startup

Claremont Creek Ventures’ portfolio company AssureRX updates its psychiatric drugs screening test

Claremont Creek Alerts — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 11:24:15 PST

January 18, 2012 source: MedCity News

Personalized medicine company AssureRx Health has released the next-generation version of its genetic screening test for psychiatric drugs.

The Cincinnati-area company’s GeneSightRx test, which helps doctors pick the right psychiatric drugs for patients based on their genes, was launched in 2009. The test uses a cheek swab, mathematical algorithms and bioinformatics to narrow drug choices to those that work with a patient’s genes.

. . .
→ Read full post: Claremont Creek Ventures’ portfolio company AssureRX updates its psychiatric drugs screening test

Claremont Creek Ventures’ portfolio company EcoATM featured in article: The Internet of Things meets cell phone recycling

Randy Hawks — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 14:15:05 PST

January 16th, 2012 source: GigaOm

We are excited by the promise of EcoATM as I mentioned in a prior post. Although a lot of these kiosks won’t be in place for a couple of years, they are gaining traction. As reported by Katie Ferenbacher in the GigaOm article, the company’s secret sauce is the kiosks’ ability to automatically estimate — using electronic and visual techniques — a . . .
→ Read full post: Claremont Creek Ventures’ portfolio company EcoATM featured in article: The Internet of Things meets cell phone recycling

Success is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration

John Steuart — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 17:28:16 PST

Keep sweating — it’s good for your venture, and let us help connect you.

by John Steuart Managing Director

During the holidays, I’ve been listening to the biography of Steve Jobs on my iPhone, and I’m reminded yet again that innovation, brilliance and the power to change the world comes often from the most unlikely sources. It is impressive to me how the guts to challenge the status quo, take risks and not stop until . . .
→ Read full post: Success is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration

Trend Spotting: 12 Greentech Startups to Watch in 2012 includes two of our portfolio companies

Nat Goldhaber — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 15:29:12 PST

December 29, 2011 source: GreentechMedia

Nat Goldhaber

Paul Straub

All of us at Claremont Creek Ventures are happy to congratulate our portfolio companies EcoFactor and Project Frog for making Greentech media’s top startups to watch in 2012. As an early stage investor in EcoFactor and Project Frog, we have been involved with the companies since the outset. Read the excerpts from Greentech Media’s article below or click . . .
→ Read full post: Trend Spotting: 12 Greentech Startups to Watch in 2012 includes two of our portfolio companies

Claremont Creek Ventures’ portfolio company Alphabet Energy covered in GreenTechEnterprise article

Claremont Creek Alerts — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 01:07:48 PST

December 21, 2011 source: this article by Eric Wesoff appeared in GreenTechEnterprise

GMZ Wins VC From KPCB for Thermovoltaics and Waste-Heat-to-Electricity The year of living thermoelectrically

Venture capital tends to move in waves, like sets of breakers on a beach or lemmings off a cliff.

In September, we witnessed two early-stage waste-heat-to-energy firms receive VC funding. They are both still in the pre-product phase.

MTPV raised $6.5 million in the initial closing of its . . .
→ Read full post: Claremont Creek Ventures’ portfolio company Alphabet Energy covered in GreenTechEnterprise article

Claremont Creek Ventures’ portfolio company ecoATM moves to Northern California: Turn in those cellphones for CASH!

Randy Hawks — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 13:13:18 PST

This week ecoATM (www.ecoatm.com) began deploying its revolutionary recycling kiosks in Northern California. Up until now, I’ve been telling folks how intriguing this company and its recycling kiosks are, but they had to travel to Southern Cal to see them installed in retail malls. Now local folks can go to a mall, get realtime pricing on their used cellphones from the worldwide recycle/refurbish markets and trade in for cash….on the spot! It is a very . . .
→ Read full post: Claremont Creek Ventures’ portfolio company ecoATM moves to Northern California: Turn in those cellphones for CASH!

Entrepreneur’s Perspective, part two: : Frank Richards, serial entrepreneur and former CEO of SmartZIP: The Building of a Company

Claremont Creek Alerts — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 11:28:02 PST

Guest Post by Frank Richards The Building of a Company As an avid fan and investor in real estate I identified a significant gap in the residential investment market around 2004. I noted that 15-20% of all homes sold in the US are for investment. But I also discovered that there were no national platforms or proprietary algorithms that could help people identify the best investment markets and the best properties. Essentially there was no Charles Schwab for the residential investment market. I realized there was a great opportunity for a private banking platform to help people research, plan, acquire and manage residential real estate investments nationwide. . . .
→ Read full post: Entrepreneur’s Perspective, part two: : Frank Richards, serial entrepreneur and former CEO of SmartZIP: The Building of a Company

Claremont Creek Ventures’ portfolio company Gene Security Network in race for prenatal test

Claremont Creek Alerts — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 23:07:11 PST

September 9, 2011 source: originally published in the San Francisco Business Times

Photo: Spencer Brown The winner “is the company that’s going to help families,” says GSN CEO Rabinowitz.

Gene Security Network’s race to develop safer, more accurate prenatal test is all business for Matt Rabinowitz — and it’s personal.

A relative of Rabinowitz, Gene Security Network’s CEO, took a blood test for the likelihood of Down’s syndrome in her unborn baby and . . .
→ Read full post: Claremont Creek Ventures’ portfolio company Gene Security Network in race for prenatal test

Entrepreneur’s Perspective: Frank Richards, Claremont Creek Ventures serial entrepreneur on the importance of partnerships

Claremont Creek Alerts — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 12:43:04 PST

Guest Post by Frank Richards

As a Silicon Valley serial entrepreneur, I love building great teams and visionary companies. I feel truly fortunate to have built three innovative companies starting from “the garage”, to taking the company public in the midst of the dot com bust, and to raising a VC round of financing for a real estate analytics firm during the biggest real estate downturn in the history of the U.S. Throughout my journey, I . . .
→ Read full post: Entrepreneur’s Perspective: Frank Richards, Claremont Creek Ventures serial entrepreneur on the importance of partnerships

CleanTech Remains Hot In A Post-Solyndra World

Nat Goldhaber — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 02:10:43 PST

December 12, 2011 source: originally published at

Pessimism about the clean tech space has been on the rise recently, thanks in part to a pair of high profile failures of government-backed companies. Congress and the media have pounced on the carrion like starving scavengers.

In the frenzy of sensationalism, it is hard for the public to derive a reasoned understanding of the facts and even more difficult to feel comfortable about the future. . . .
→ Read full post: CleanTech Remains Hot In A Post-Solyndra World

Money, motorcycle racing and startups—it’s all about winning and losing, by Sam Coates

John Steuart — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 21:47:52 PST

Sam Coates is a partner at Cooley, and a great friend and colleague of mine. He wrote this blog post just for us.

Money, motorcycle racing and startups—it’s all about winning and losing

Guest Post by Sam Coates

“I like money,” one founder said to me bluntly, in response to my question about what motivates him. I ask every founder this question. Some of them say things such as . . .
→ Read full post: Money, motorcycle racing and startups—it’s all about winning and losing, by Sam Coates

Claremont Creek Ventures’ portfolio company Sentilla announces version 4.0 with analytics and planning capabilities

Paul Straub — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 22:22:55 PST

December 5, 2011 source: Greentech Media

Claremont Creek Ventures portfolio company Sentilla, launched a software suite today that promises to help customers plan their data center needs . We are excited with the traction Sentilla is getting in the market and this greentech article captures the essence of this announcement well.

Sentilla Targets Business Beyond Data Center Efficiency

Sentilla wants to move from data center efficiency to data center planning.

Sentilla, . . .
→ Read full post: Claremont Creek Ventures’ portfolio company Sentilla announces version 4.0 with analytics and planning capabilities

Claremont Creek Ventures’ portfolio company: Roy Johnson joins EcoFactor team as CEO

Nat Goldhaber — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 13:22:05 PST

December 4, 2011 source: marketwire

I am excited that EcoFactor has appointed a new CEO –Roy Johnson–who can help drive the company to bring residential energy to the mass market. Roy has deep experience in the energy conservation business. John Steinberg, the former CEO will remain with the company in his role as Founder and Executive Vice President of Business Development. In this position, Steinberg will guide EcoFactor’s general business development and strategy, as well . . .
→ Read full post: Claremont Creek Ventures’ portfolio company: Roy Johnson joins EcoFactor team as CEO

Claremont Creek Ventures’ portfolio company Clean Power Finance channels $1 Million into solar every day

Claremont Creek Alerts — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 08:53:48 PST

December 2, 2011 source: GreenTech Media

At the end of 2010, Clean Power Finance (CPF) CEO Nat Kreamer and a group of the biggest names in greentech venture capital, including Kleiner Perkins and Google, decided to take the company to the next level.

CPF was founded in 2007 as an online tool to connect solar buyers and sellers with financial products and help them design solar systems. By 2010, . . .
→ Read full post: Claremont Creek Ventures’ portfolio company Clean Power Finance channels $1 Million into solar every day