NET-ZERO BUILDING VENTURE CAPITAL MARKET: CURRENT OPPORTUNITIES AND EMERGING TRENDS FOR ENTREPRENEURIAL COMPANIES

As the world's largest source of energy consumption and carbon emissions, the global market for green building solutions has attracted billion of dollars as venture capital investments. With green buildings becoming mainstream, the next big thing for the industry is in the realm of net-zero buildings that produce as much energy as they consume. This will require investments in both energy efficiency measures and renewable energy generation creating a flow of venture capital to net-zero building technologies from individual and institutional investors. Significant funding opportunities will be available for early stage technology companies with unique innovation in different sectors of the net-zero building market anywhere from green materials to systems that operate the building and to the information management side of the building. An assessment of the relevant venture capital market is necessary for emerging entrepreneurs to be able to utilize such opportunities efficiently. This paper provides a preliminary assessment of the current net-zero building venture capital market and future prospects. Key assessments will be related to overall market and Latin American market trends and prospects of capital venture investments in green construction and net-zero building. Furthermore, probable success and failure factors for such investments have been discussed. Such knowledge will provide competitive advantage to entrepreneurial companies to react quickly and wisely in changing market dynamics and help at a later stage of this study with further extensive trend assessment and the development of a self-assessment tool for emerging entrepreneurial companies in evaluating their readiness for venture capital.