Startup Valuations: Too much, too early?
Corporate valuations of the cleantech firms have always been an issue of fervent debate. On one hand, a set of market participants advocates usage of traditional valuation methods (discounted cash flow, comparable company analysis etc.) to arrive at a figure, while another school of thought propagates the consideration of intangible variables like the impact of new technology on common masses and the quantum change the technology promises to bring in daily life of an average user. Automotive battery and electric vehicle manufacturers are no exceptions with a number of low sales, concept stage companies receiving high valuations. Here are a few examples. A123Systems Inc. The company was incubated in MIT in 2001. After initial rounds of funding and dropping the original idea of self-organizing batteries, A123 scored big with a contract to supply batteries to Black & Decker power tools in 2005. The company has raised around US$300m in as much as six rounds of funding excluding the com