Kleiner Perkins
Blood joined with Gore after he was among the original 221 Goldman partners who got shares in that company’s 1999 IPO. Blood’s 0.66 percent stake, based on valuations at the time, was thought to be worth about $100 million.
Blood lived with his family in Brazil as a youngster and has said he was distressed by the extreme poverty there. Gore’s notion of “sustainable capitalism” appealed to Blood, who also declined to be interviewed for this story.
In November 2007, GIM announced a partnership with Silicon Valley venture capital company Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, to join its green-investing efforts. The goal, according to a joint press release at the time, was to create “a global collaboration to find, fund and accelerate green business, technology and policy solutions with the greatest potential to help solve the current climate crisis.”
Gore was made a partner at Kleiner Perkins and John Doerr, an early investor in Amazon.com Inc., Intuit Inc. and Google, joined GIM’s advisory board. At Kleiner Perkins, Gore helps with investment strategies and selectively advises companies but doesn’t lead deals or take board seats on startups the firm invests in. Kleiner Perkins declined to discuss his compensation.
Green Blemishes
Investing on behalf of its clients, GIM has put $50 million to $100 million in KPCB’s $1 billion green growth fund, according to two people with knowledge of the amount who asked not to be identified because they aren’t authorized to speak about it.
While Kleiner Perkins doesn’t publish fund results, its green fund hasn’t had unblemished success.
Along with potential winners like Bloom Energy, a fuel-cell maker, and Nest Labs Inc., a thermostat company, Kleiner Perkins also backed Miasole Inc., a solar-panel maker that was bought for a reported $30 million after raising at least $494 million from investors, and Fisker Automotive Inc., the electric-car maker that fired three-quarters of its staff last month.
Well Versed