Finance Series Event #8:

“The Ramifications of the JOBS Act on Clean Energy Financing and IPOs”

Date: July 18, 2012

Agenda: 8:00 - 8:30 AM – Breakfast and Networking

8:30 – 9:45 AM: Panel Discussion

9:45 – 10:00 AM: Question and Answer session

10:00 – 10:30 AM: Optional Networking

Location: 200 Clarendon St, Boston, MA 02116 (Ernst & Young Office)

Cost: Free for Council Members and Sponsors

Non-Members: $40.00

Description: Signed into law this Spring, the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act is intended to encourage funding of U.S. small businesses by easing various securities regulations. As a result, clean energy companies now have several options for raising money, including going public, seeking venture capital, and the latest tactic – crowdfunding. This panel will address a range of issues that cleantech executives should be aware of, including:

• How the "JOBS Act" has produced an increased interest in going public
• What "crowdfunding" is, and how it presents an important financing opportunity for small clean energy businesses
• How does the JOBS Act affect companies currently in the registration process?
• How will crowdfunding complement cleantech venture capital, and which method is best for which companies?

Moderator: Peter Rothstein, President, New England Clean Energy Council

Panelists:

Jay Spencer, Americas Cleantech Sector Leader, Ernst & Young LLP

Sahir Surmeli, Co-Chair, Energy & Clean Technlology Practice, Mintz Levin

Gabriel Martinez, CEO & Founder, CleanCrowd (formerly Envestex)

Bic Stevens, President, Boston Cleantech Angels

Dennis Costello, Managing Partner, Braemar Energy Ventures

Panelist Bios:

Jay Spencer, Americas Cleantech Sector Leader, Ernst & Young LLP

Jay Spencer is a Partner and the Americas Director of Cleantech for Ernst & Young LLP. In this role, he manages a multidisciplinary network of professionals across the US, Canada, Israel and Brazil who serve companies that are investing in and looking to benefit from cleantech innovation. Jay served as the Northeast Cleantech Leader from 2006 to 2010. During this time, he launched the firm’s cleantech strategy, integrating cleantech market knowledge into Northeast client engagements and business development strategy. Jay received a BS from Boston College. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the Massachusetts Society of Certified Public Accountants and the Young Leadership Committee at the Museum of Science in Boston. 

Sahir Surmeli, Co-Chair, Energy & Clean Technology Practice, Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo PC

Sahir serves as Co-chair of Mintz Levin’s Energy & Clean Technology Practice, which serves more than 300 clients; has completed more than 250 transactions totaling over $4 billion; has been ranked #2 nationally among top Clean Technology law firms, according to Watershed Capital Group; and in 2011 was listed as a "Best Law Firm" by U.S. News & World Report, both in Boston and nationally.

Sa works with a wide range of emerging energy companies, including Aspen Aerogels, GreatPoint Energy, EnerNOC, Northern Power, FloDesign Wind Turbine and Terrabon.  He also represents investors and investment banks in the sector. He has also represented underwriters and issuer clients in traditional energy fields, including oil and gas, pipeline and exploration financings, and mergers and acquisitions. Sa has worked on a wide variety of capital-raising and related projects, with a focus on equity and debt financings, joint ventures and mergers and acquisitions, with aggregate proceeds of more than $10.6 billion.

He has an M.B.A. in corporate finance and focuses on adding value in complex financing structures and helping younger companies navigate the challenges of the public and private markets, and has extensive international experience, having represented clients in the United States, Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere.

Sa serves on the Innovation Task Force of the New England Clean Energy Council, is a regular speaker on emerging clean technology matters, works with the MIT Enterprise Forum Ignite Clean Energy/Cleantech Open competition, and is a member of the MIT Energy Club. He also serves on the board of the Vision Collective, a Boston-based charitable organization, and in 2008 was selected to participate in the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce’s "2008 Boston’s Future Leaders Program." Sa received his M.B.A., with a concentration in Finance, from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, and he received his J.D. degree from the University of Chicago Law School, both in 1992.

Gabriel Martinez, CEO & Founder, CleanCrowd (formerly Envestex)

As an entrepreneur who has shaped his life around his inherent belief that one will do well by doing good, Gabriel is dedicated to proliferating clean energy technology and believes strongly that the only way to do so is through the creation and quantification of both environmental and financial value. As a result, he founded Envestex a Royalty Based Crowdfunding Portal dedicated to supporting startup, early stage, and growth companies in the Cleantech, Clean Energy, and Environmentally Responsible Consumer Goods industries.

Gabriel received his Bachelor and Master of Science Degrees from Dartmouth’s Thayer School of Engineering. Most recently before founding Envestex, Gabriel served as Chief Operating Officer at IceCode, a company with disruptive ice management and energy efficiency technology.

Bic Stevens, Founder, Boston Cleantech Angels

Bic Stevens has more than 30 years of investment banking, venture capital, and business development experience. Over his career, he has served as a director of 28 high-technology companies and raised hundreds of millions in equity capital for his clients and portfolio companies.

For the past ten years, Bic has worked exclusively in the renewable energy and clean technology sector as a venture capitalist, investment banker, and business development executive. Over that period, he assessed, or worked with, hundreds of clean and renewable technology companies in such areas as grid-scale energy storage, lithium ion batteries, solar cells, wind turbines, fuel cells, energy efficiency, renewable hydrogen, renewable plastics, renewable energy certificates, clean air, and clean water. Bic has worked with a significant majority of the nation's leading clean technology investors and has extensive experience with clean technology finance and utility and renewable energy markets. 

Dennis Costello, Managing Partner, Braemar Energy Ventures

Dennis R. Costello has more than 30 years of experience in the energy and venture capital industries. He was previously a partner with Advent International, an international private equity firm where he rose to chief investment officer for North America. Dennis was personally responsible for 23 investments, 10 of which were in the energy area, and was also a managing director in Rock Maple Ventures, an early-stage technology venture fund in Boston. He started in the venture capital industry as a general partner of Zero Stage Capital, of Pennsylvania. Before embarking on a career in venture capital, Dennis was the first Executive Director of the Colorado Advanced Technology Institute (CATI) in Denver. He began his career in alternative energy with positions as a project manager at Midwest Research Institute and as a member of the original staff of the National Solar Energy Research Institute (SERI), which is now the National Renewable energy Laboratory (NREL). During that period, Dennis published numerous papers and articles on the economic and market issues of solar energy commercialization. He is also the author of the Dow Jones Irwin book, New Venture Analysis: Research, Planning and Finance.

Dennis holds an M.S. degree in business from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow. He also holds an M.A. in economics from Ohio State University and a B.A. in economics from the State University of New York (SUNY), College at Fredonia, where he currently serves as a Director of the Fredonia College Foundation.