In green tech, debate over singles versus home runs

SAN FRANCISCO--Venture capitalists have become bipolar when it comes to green-technology investing in a debate affecting the pace of innovation.

The core question is whether it's better financially and environmentally to bet on technology breakthroughs or to play it safer by developing incremental improvements over existing products. It's an undercurrent to the AlwaysOn GoingGreen conference here this week and reflection of how green-tech investing has changed over the past three years.

"It's a huge debate, but we're in the second inning of an extra-inning game," said Andrew Chung, who recently joined Khosla Ventures as a partner. "Clean-tech investing is really tough and it has only been around for five years, so we're still figuring out how to do it."

Khosla Ventures, led by famed investor Vinod Khosla, most visibly represents the "go big or go home" approach of placing many bets on potential breakthroughs developed by start-ups. Its strategy is to place dozens of bets in a wide range of energy and industrial sectors with the hopes that a handful of successes will make up for the duds.   Read More

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