Varioptic, the France-based liquid lens company, has appointed Christian Dupont as chief executive, replacing Etienne Paillard who has now left the company. Varioptic says the change coincides with a move in company focus away from technology and product development to the challenges associated with deploying its products in the mobile imaging market.

HelioDynamics, the UK-based developer of solar energy technology, has appointed Clarke Simmons as chief executive and Keith Glichrist as chairman. The news coincides with the announcement of further funding of £600k (€886k) from the Low Carbon Accelerator. HelioDynamics has developed a solar photovoltaic system that uses mirrors to reflect and concentrate sunlight to produce electricity and heat. The recent appointments are intended to add a further layer of commercial focus to the company.

SoonR, the US and Denmark-based developer of technology for accessing and sharing computer files remotely, has appointed Patrick McVeigh as chief executive. Mr McVeigh was most recently chief executive of Nasdaq-listed PalmSource, a global provider of mobile handset operating systems. SoonR has developed a service that is designed to link data-enabled devices, such as mobile phones, PDAs, or computers, to applications and data on any internet connected computer. The company also announced that company founder Martin Frid-Nielsen has been appointed chairman and chief product officer.

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In 1990 the State of California brought in the ‘zero emission’ regulation requiring 10% of all vehicles in the state to be zero emission by 2003. Various subsequent amendments watered this down until it became almost meaningless. In the meantime the space has been littered with false starts in the race to develop an electric car which matches the needs of consumers whilst contributing to the battle against climate change. GM and Ford have both been in the electric car market over the last ten years and have both failed- some say deliberately. Indeed, GM actually sued the Californian state government to get rid of the zero emission regulation.

Theories, ranging from the logical to the conspiratorial, have been expounded as to why electric vehicles have been such a failure. The automotive industry claims that, for most of the past ten years, the technology has been such that a compelling consumer experience is undeliverable. Slow speeds and short ranges have made electric vehicles impractical for all but the niche user. Others have suggested that the automotive and oil industries have a vested interest in the whole concept failing.

The strong emergence of the hybrid (powered by a standard internal combustion engine plus supplementary power from an electric motor) puts the lie to the second explanation. Car companies understand that they need to respond to the ‘green’ agenda. But what about all-electric vehicles, 100% powered by electricity?

In the last week venture capital has been making its way into companies right in this space. Venture Vehicles of California raised a $6m series A round on 17 August from NGEN Partners and DVC Technologies while rumours have it that Phoenix Motorcars is in the process of raising a $15m round from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Venture Vehicles is developing a mix of products including hybrid and all electric vehicles while Phoenix is focused solely on the all electric market.

Why do investors believe the time has finally come for electric vehicles? One major reason is the rapid advances being made in battery technology (see rise in investment in this area, Figure). A123 Systems, battery supplier for Venture Vehicles, is the leader in this field and has raised over $102m from Sequoia Capital, General Electric and numerous other investors. The company has exploited proprietary ‘nanoscale’ technology, originally developed at MIT, which allows lithium ion batteries to deliver greatly increased power over an extended lifetime. Initially employed in power tools, this new generation of batteries promises to solve the major historic problem with electric vehicles- low power and short battery life.


But A123 Systems isn’t the only player in this field. Indeed, Phoenix are using the ‘Nanosafe’ battery developed and produced by rival, Nevada-based Altairnano. Further evidencing the activity in this space, Altairnano recently signed an agreement with ISE Corp to jointly develop a battery-motor combination drive system for all electric vehicles.

In short, serious money is now being put into the electrification of road transport. In the venture market, battery companies and electric vehicle developers are closing funding rounds while, at the corporate level, development partnerships are emerging to meet the need for mass produced electric drive systems.

So, how will all this play out in the fight against climate change? Will switching gasoline vehicles to electricity actually reduce emissions unless we generate that electricity from renewable sources? The flippant answer to this question has always been no. Yet recent research demonstrates that this is simply wrong. A detailed report from the Pacific North West Laboratory in the US demonstrated that changing 84% of US car, pick-up and SUV transportation to electric power, without any other changes (i.e. with no increase in renewable electricity generation) would cut US carbon emissions by 27%. A similar study from Stanford University showed that for the average car, switching to hydrogen fuel cell power from gasoline would save 50g of carbon emissions per kilometer traveled, even if the hydrogen was produced from non-renewable sources.

In other words, electrifying road transport would make an important contribution to combating climate change even if nothing else changes. It may be that electric cars for the mass market are, finally, on their way.

Metacafe, the Israel-based online media and video sharing community, has raised $30m (€22.3m) in series C funding from Highland Capital Partners, Accel Partners, Benchmark Capital and DAG Ventures. Metacafe says that its 25 million unique viewers each month make it one of the world's largest video sites. The money raised will be used to support the company's continued global growth, including expanding the breadth and depth of content, sources of which include emerging video creators as well as partnerships with established media companies.

Novafora, the US and Israel-based fabless semiconductor company targeting the video processing sector, has raised $12m (€8.9m) from Gemini Israel Funds and Vertex Venture. The company, which is currently operating in stealth mode, was set up in 2005 by the Zaki and Shlomo Rakib, the two brothers who founded Nasdaq-listed Terayon Communication Systems in 1993.

Small World Financial Services, the UK-based money transfer operator, has raised £2.4m ($3.5m) from MMC Ventures. Small Word operates ‘corridors’ of money exchange between western Europe and developing countries. The UK is reportedly a strongly growing market, with many newly arrived workers now sending money back to their home countries.

iMotions, the Denmark-based developer software to measure emotional response, has raised $2.7m (€2m) from Inventure Capital, The Way Forward, Andy Miller, Joergen Thorball, Kenneth Morse and other undisclosed private investors. The company's software is designed to be an objective, non-intrusive, reliable way of measuring human emotional response to visual stimuli such as print ads, direct marketing material, and brochures. The funding is intended to allow the company to strengthen and expand its sales organisation in the US and its support organisation worldwide.

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Tim O’Reilly recently blogged about a bay area seminar exploring how people have mastered information through the ages. This was based on a book by author Alex Wright who commented that “the future of the information age may lie deep in our cultural past.” Although I haven’t read the book, I agree with that statement and would argue that future technological innovation depends broadly on the past.

It's worth explaining that my fiancé studies technology innovation as a Palaeolithic archaeologist. Looking back hundreds of thousands of years there are some dramatic innovations like the development of fire. Tens of thousands of years ago there were regular technology iterations in the creation and use of stone tools. After countless dinner conversations where I’ve discussed technology developments from 3 weeks ago and she has highlighted innovations from 30,000 years ago one major difference stands out.

Archeologists look to technological change as an indicator of behavior in society. Modern technologists often focus just on the technology itself.

This emphasis on technology instead of an underlying problem or human need is misleading. It’s also the root cause of failure for many startups. Consider Peer-to-Peer Networks or Software as a Service. These are meaningless phrases to the majority of the population and there certainly isn’t some innate “peer-to-peer deficiency” that these address.

Returning to my original point, you may wonder how the past will help guide future technological innovation. Focusing on human needs is a strong indicator of where innovation will be happening. Taking the long view, it’s safe to say that in a few decades no one will be talking about peer to peer networks or software as a service. However, something like social networking as a concept probably will still be around. A social network is something that the earliest humans sought to establish and it still appeals to a fundamental human need today. No wonder that Facebook is such a success.

U3 Pharma, the Germany-based developer of targeted cancer drugs, has revealed that it recently appointed Dr Irina Staatz-Granzer as chief executive. Previous chief executive, Dr Karsten Henco, left the company earlier this year. U3 Pharma's two lead programs, in co-development with Nasdaq-listed Amgen, focus on fully human antibodies and are nearing the clinic as potential therapies for breast, lung and colorectal cancers, among others.

Inforsense, the UK-based provider of software to allow enterprises to orchestrate and optimise their business-critical decision-making processes, has appointed Stephen Allott as executive chairman. Mr Allot has worked for McKinsey, Sun Microsystems and Xerox. From 1995 to 2001 he worked at Micromuse, a London-based software company where he was president, chief financial officer and a main board director. During this time, Micromuse grew from £1m to £140m in turnover, and from 50 to 800 people. He is also the founder and executive chairman of Trinamo, the London-based management consulting firm for technology companies.

FilesX, the US and Israel-based provider of continuous data protection (CDP) products, has appointed Jimmy Garcia-Meza as president and chief executive. Alon Cohen, who had been chief executive and chairman, remains with the company as chairman.

Mirasys, the Finland-based supplier of open digital multimedia management solutions (DMMS) for the security industry, has confirmed that Jukka Riivari recently joined the company as chief executive, replacing Pasi Lehmus who intends to leave the company within the next week.

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