The quarterly public open panel meeting of the Council for Entrepreneurial Development (CED) was held last Wednesday evening at the American Tobacco Underground Campus in Durham. The panel featured clean energy venture capitalist investors led by moderator Brad Ives, who is Vice President for Corporate Development at Semprius Solar. The panel included Michael Adams, Managing Director in Technology Ventures at Constellation – An Exelon Company, Grant Allen, Vice President of ABB Technology Ventures, and Neil Suslak, Managing Partner at Braemar Energy Ventures.
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| A Large Crowd of investors, entrepreneurs, and students gather before the CED Cleantech funding panel |
The goal of the panel discussion was to speak about the current state of venture capitalism in the clean energy sector, recent projects they have been a significant part of in the funding process, and the short and long term future of the VC market in the energy industry. Questions from the audience were encouraged, and a large topic of discussion was how to bring more investments and VC into the Research Triangle area from the larger funds typically located in Silicon Valley. Panelist Grant Allen responded, saying the RTP is doing quite well, and encouraged businesses to continue bringing new innovations to market and keep working as they have been and this will lead to more growth in the sector and larger investments. The other panelists agreed.
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| The CED event was sponsored by Ernst & Young and Hutchison PLLC |
The CED is a nonprofit organization based in Durham, NC. It's mission statement is to identify, enable and promote high-growth, high-impact companies and to accelerate the entrepreneurial culture of the Research Triangle and North Carolina. They are the largest entrepreneurial support organization in the Southeast, and the oldest in the country. There are currently over 5,500 active members in the organization, with 1,100 companies represented in North Carolina. You can check out their website at http://www.cednc.org/
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| Attendees met for a catered reception after the event |
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