O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures Invests in Amee

by Tim O'Reilly | @timoreilly | comments: 6

I'm pleased to announce that on Wednesday, O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, our VC affiliate, closed an investment in UK-based Amee, which bills itself as "the world's energy meter." Here's their description of what they do:

AMEE’s aim is to map, measure and track all the energy data on Earth. This includes aggregating every emission factor and methodology related to CO2 and Energy Assessments (individuals, businesses, buildings, products, supply chains, countries, etc.), and all the consumption data (fuel, water, waste, quantitative and qualitative factors).

It is a web-service (API) that combines measurement, calculation, profiling and transactional systems. Its algorithmic engine applies conversion factors from energy into CO2 emissions, and represents data from 150 countries.

AMEE aids the development of businesses and other initiatives - by providing common benchmarks for measurement, tracking, conversion, collaboration and reporting.

If you've been following my talks in which I urge software developers and entrepreneurs to "work on stuff that matters," you know that I consider getting a handle on carbon accounting is the first step in putting a stop to global warming. (If you're a warming skeptic, I consider global warming as a modern example of Pascal's wager: if we're wrong, and global warming is not human caused, the steps we'll take to address it are still worthwhile. We get off foreign oil, improve our energy security, build new industries, improve the environment.)

Even apart from the contribution to a critical world issue, Amee is interesting because it shows that the future of web services will involve a much broader range of data services than most people imagine. I've long argued that the subsystems of the emerging internet operating system are data subsystems. Some of those, like location and identity, are obvious, and thus hotly contested. Others, like carbon data, are sorely needed, and not yet built out. There's huge opportunity in finding and populating key databases, and then turning them into ubiquitous web services.

By the way, if you use dopplr, you've already seen Amee at work: it provides the data for dopplr's carbon calculator tab.

Union Square Ventures is also an investor in this round. Partner Albert Wenger gives his take on the investment on their blog.

O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures Startup Camp

by Tim O'Reilly | @timoreilly | comments: 8

The Thursday and Friday (July 10-11) before this year's Foo Camp in Sebastopol July 11-13, O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures will be hosting OATV Startup Camp. This startup boot camp will consist of sessions led by startup veterans and other experts in a roundtable discussion format on various topics important to founders. The sessions will be more of a conversation on each topic rather than a lecture, in which participants will learn from each other as well as from entrepreneurs who've already been successful.

We're making space at OATV Startup Camp (and at Foo Camp to follow) for two people from each of six to eight early stage startups that we select from those that apply. Once we select the startups, we’ll tailor the sessions to their issues, but we're planning to cover things like fundraising, PR and viral marketing, and working with investors and a board of directors. And of course, you get to interact with all the people who'll be there at Foo Camp as well.

To apply, email your company presentation (no more than 20 slides) to foo at oatv.com. Then note that Foo Camp is all about bringing people together who are doing amazing things. What about your start up would be interesting to the people who come to Foo? At O'Reilly, we're not just interested in making money (although like all investors, we do care about that too!). We're interested in people and technologies that we believe have the potential to change the world for the better, and that tell us something new about emerging trends that everyone else isn't already thinking.

Some areas of interest include cloud computing, mobile, location-based services, open source hardware, physical computing and new materials, the future of manufacturing, tools for information management and open data, open source (especially as used to create Web 2.0 data assets), rich media and the future of creativity, cleantech, braintech (applied neuroscience), and personal genomics. Even better, surprise us with something you see that we don't.

We'll pick 6-8 early stage startup companies by June 20, 2008. Applications are due by June 6, 2008.