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Venture Firms Line Up To Oppose Prop 23

A long list of California venture capital investors have joined to oppose Proposition 23, the California ballet initiative coming up in the polls, which looks to halt the state's recently passed AB32 clean energy law. The list includes Costa Mesa-based clean technology venture investor SAIL Venture Partners, as well as a number of the most active clean technology investors in Southern California firms, such as Nth Power, Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, Venrock, and MDV-Mohr Davidow Ventures. According to the firms, if the Proposition passes, it "would cause California to lose billions of dollars of investment and thousands of jobs to competitors like China, Japan, Germany, or other U.S. states that have more stable commitments to clean energy policy." According to MAPlight.org, a nonpartisan research organization tracking political contributions, major contributors supporting Proposition 23 are Valero Services, Tesoro, Flint Hills Resources, Marathon Petroleum, and Occidental Petroleum.

Investors who oppose Proposition 23 include Advanced Technology Ventures, Canaan Partners, CMEA Capital, Element Partners, Essex Investment Management, Expansion Capital Partners, Firelake Capital Management, Flybridge Capital Partners, Globescan Capital Partners, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, MDV- Mohr Davidow Ventures, MissionPoint Capital Partners, Morgenthaler Ventures, Noventi Ventures, Nth Power, Parnassus Investments, Physic Ventures, SAIL Venture Partners, Scale Venture Partners, Spring Ventures, SVB Capital, Technology Partners, U.S. Venture Partners, VantagePoint Venture Partners, Velocity Venture Capital, Venrock, and Walden Asset Management.