About: Quercus Trust is known to be very low-key and yet David Gelbaum’s Quercus Trust have amassed a large portfolio that very few companies (such as Kleiner Perkins and Khosla Ventures) have invested more in cleantech than Quercus Trust. Quercus Trust is so quiet and secretive that its website does not have any information except a link to email them. Even an article was written by Michael Kanellos from Greentech Media on how to contact the Quercus Trust.

www.thequercustrust.com

Key Personnel:
David Gelbaum, Trustee (LA Times wrote an extensive article on him in 2004 but no mention of Quercus Trust)

Portfolio:
Since the website doesn’t have any information, you’ll have to look elsewhere for information such as Cleantech Group. This Greentech Media article by Michael Kanellos on 7 Nov 2008 scoured through SEC filings and press releases and found at least 34 companies in the Quercus portfolio which was more extensive than previously reported:

Ascent Solar, Axion Power International, Beacon Power, BlueFire Ethanol, China Solar and Clean Energy (formerly Beijing Deli Solar), DayStar Technologies, Electro Energy, Energy Focus, Emcore, Environmental Power, Odyne, Open Energy, Solar Enertech, Spire, Thermoenergy, WorldWater and Solar, Sencera, Nanoptek, Promethean Power, Hydro Green Energy, Standard Renewable Energy, GridPoint, Colorep, LiveFuels, Firefly Energy, Cyrium Technologies, Ener1, Akeena Sola, Octillion, Lighting Science, Enviromission, Dynamotive, Nano Si Solar, Magenn Power.

Kanellos added 3 more in this article: 1366 Technologies, NetCrystal, Lightwave Power.

Kanellos added another 10 the list to become total 47 in this article: BioPetroClean, 3GSolar, Advanced Telemetry, ETV Motors, ReGen Power Systems, TBT Group, Technospin, Variable Wind Solutions, LaunchPoint Technologies, Graphene Energy.

According to Cleantech Group report, Quercus had 3 deals in 1Q09 in Advanced Hydro, Graphene Energy, Sencera.
I add other companies to the list from Cleantech Group 2008 report: Glacier Bay, Suniva.

News: Although the Cleantech Group 2008 report stated that Quercus Trust invested in Suniva but it seems that this Earth2Tech article updated its report that it was Quercus Investment, a firm that has no relation to or relationship with David Gelbaum’s Quercus Trust, that has invested in Suniva’s $50 million Series B funding round. A press release by Suniva states “Quercus Investment” but offers no description about the firm.

Yesterday, 27 July 2009, Suniva raised $75m in Series C funding round, which is led by Warburg Pincus. Also participating in the round were APEX Venture Partners and returning investors New Enterprise Associates (NEA), HIG Ventures and Advanced Equities. Reuters covered this news as well.

Reuters reported on 26 July 2009 that “U.S. solar company Applied Solar Inc filed for protection under Chapter 11 on July 24, court documents showed. The San Diego maker of building-integrated solar products declared assets of $17.6 million, and total debts of $29.1 million. In May, the company had said it would seek bankruptcy protection, as part of a loan agreement with its largest investor, The Quercus Trust. The solar company had borrowed $698,000 from Quercus, an investment firm that focuses on clean technology companies. Quercus is run by investor David Gelbaum.” I was looking for Applied Solar in the portfolio list above but couldn’t find it. Then I found that Open Energy Corporation had changed its name to Applied Solar, Inc in January 2009.

iPhone Death Watch

“We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone. PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.”
Palm CEO Ed Colligan, commenting on then-rumored Apple iPhone, Nov. 16, 2006

“You could look at Apple and the iPhone as something that’s come out of nowhere, essentially, and changed the dynamics of the smartphone space–there’s every opportunity to do that in our case as well,”
Palm CEO Ed Colligan, May 28, 2008

“We are not at all worried. We think we’ve got the one mobile platform you’ll use for the rest of your life. [Apple] are not going to catch up.”
Scott Rockfeld, Microsoft Mobile Communications Group Product Manager, April 01, 2008

“Microsoft, with Windows Mobile/ActiveSync, Nokia with Intellisync, and Motorola with Good Technology have all fared poorly in the enterprise. We have no reason to expect otherwise from Apple.”
Peter Misek, Canaccord Adams, March 07, 2008

“[Apple should sell 7.9 million iPhones in 2008]… Apple’s goal of selling 10 million iPhones this year is optimistic.”
Toni Sacconaghi, Bernstein Research, February 22, 2008

“What does the iPhone offer that other cell phones do not already offer, or will offer soon? The answer is not very much… Apple’s stated goal of selling 10 million iPhones by the end of 2008 seems ambitious.”
Laura Goldman, LSG Capital, May 21, 2007

“How do you deal with that? How do they deal with us?”
Ed Zander, Motorola CEO/Chairman May 10, 2007

“The iPhone is going to be nothing more than a temporary novelty that will eventually wear off.”
Gundeep Hora, CoolTechZone Editor-in-Chief, April 02, 2007

“Apple should pull the plug on the iPhone… What Apple risks here is its reputation as a hot company that can do no wrong. If it’s smart it will call the iPhone a ‘reference design’ and pass it to some suckers to build with someone else’s marketing budget. Then it can wash its hands of any marketplace failures… Otherwise I’d advise people to cover their eyes. You are not going to like what you’ll see.”
John C. Dvorak, Bloated Gas Bag, March 28, 2007

“Even if [the iPhone] is opened up to third parties, it is difficult to see how the installed base of iPhones can reach the level where it becomes a truly attractive service platform for operator and developer investment.”
Tony Cripps, Ovum Service Manager for Mobile User Experience, March 14, 2007

“I’m more convinced than ever that, after an initial frenzy of publicity and sales to early adopters, iPhone sales will be unspectacular… iPhone may well become Apple’s next Newton.”
David Haskin, Computerworld, February 26, 2007

“Consumers are not used to paying another couple hundred bucks more just because Apple makes a cool product. Some fans will buy [iPhone], but for the rest of us it’s a hard pill to swallow just to have the coolest thing.”
Neil Strother, NPD Group, January 22, 2007

“The iPhone’s willful disregard of the global handset market will come back to haunt Apple.”
Tero Kuittinen, RealMoney.com, January 18, 2007

“[Apple's iPhone] is the most expensive phone in the world and it doesn’t appeal to business customers because it doesn’t have a keyboard which makes it not a very good email machine… So, I, I kinda look at that and I say, well, I like our strategy. I like it a lot.”
Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, January 17, 2007

“The iPhone is nothing more than a luxury bauble that will appeal to a few gadget freaks. In terms of its impact on the industry, the iPhone is less relevant… Apple is unlikely to make much of an impact on this market… Apple will sell a few to its fans, but the iPhone won’t make a long-term mark on the industry.”
Matthew Lynn, Bloomberg, January 15, 2007

“iPhone which doesn’t look, I mean to me, I’m looking at this thing and I think it’s kind of trending against, you know, what’s really going, what people are really liking on, in these phones nowadays, which are those little keypads. I mean, the Blackjack from Samsung, the Blackberry, obviously, you know kind of pushes this thing, the Palm, all these… And I guess some of these stocks went down on the Apple announcement, thinking that Apple could do no wrong, but I think Apple can do wrong and I think this is it.”
John C. Dvorak, Bloated Gas Bag, January 13, 2007

“I am pretty skeptical. I don’t think [iPhone] will meet the fantastic predictions I have been reading. For starters, while Apple basically established the market for portable music players, the phone market is already established, with a number of major brands. Can Apple remake the phone market in its image? Success is far from guaranteed.”
Jack Gold, J. Gold Associates, January 11, 2007

“Apple will launch a mobile phone in January, and it will become available during 2007. It will be a lovely bit of kit, a pleasure to behold, and its limited functionality will be easy to access and use. The Apple phone will be exclusive to one of the major networks in each territory and some customers will switch networks just to get it, but not as many as had been hoped. As customers start to realise that the competition offers better functionality at a lower price, by negotiating a better subsidy, sales will stagnate. After a year a new version will be launched, but it will lack the innovation of the first and quickly vanish. The only question remaining is if, when the iPod phone fails, it will take the iPod with it.”
Bill Ray, The Register, December 26, 2006

“The economics of something like [an Apple iPhone] aren’t that compelling.”
Rod Bare, Morningstar, December 08, 2006

“Apple is slated to come out with a new phone… And it will largely fail…. Sales for the phone will skyrocket initially. However, things will calm down, and the Apple phone will take its place on the shelves with the random video cameras, cell phones, wireless routers and other would-be hits… When the iPod emerged in late 2001, it solved some major problems with MP3 players. Unfortunately for Apple, problems like that don’t exist in the handset business. Cell phones aren’t clunky, inadequate devices. Instead, they are pretty good. Really good.”
Michael Kanellos, CNET, December 07, 2006