Are cleantech companies really at risk in the wake of the Solyndra bankruptcy?
Maybe not. A map by Quid shows the clean tech space is growing into what looks like a thriving ecosystem.
Quid is a San Francisco-based startup that took publicly available information and visualized the relationships of all the green companies that have been founded, funded, filed for an IPO, withdrew from an IPO, or went dormant for the last ten years.
Watch the video to see how some clean tech companies were born, matured, and in some cases, folded:
In 2000, the clean tech space looked empty. But now the market for electric vehicles, solar panels, and other green companies appears really connected - even slightly tangled.
It is clear that clean tech went from a relatively uncrowded space to a competitive one in the span of a decade, due to more funding and mainstream interest in sustainability.
Beyond clean tech, Quid is focused on analyzing tech trends, politics, and conflicts, and is programming software that can track everything from the movement of people to investments, research and development, violence, and attacks.
I wrote about Quid for Thomson Reuters back in June:
At his office, Gourley shows off a map of technology companies on his computer screen. The clusters of tech companies appear as blue spots, and are spun together like a spider web to show where similar companies operate in a particular sector.
He explains that Quid collects data about companies based on key words, patents and press mentions to create a graph that shows how the companies are connected. Each dot on the graph represents a company. Where there are lots of dots in close proximity to one another is a depiction of a crowded and competitive space.
Mining open source intelligence can help companies and agencies predict events and trends early.
In-Q-Tel-backed Recorded Futures is another startup that monitors the Internet in real-time to uncover relationships between people, events, and organizations - all based on social media interactions and information revealed in blogs and other public information.
via Popular Science
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