Climate entrepreneurs invited to compete for $75,000 prize

The Financial Times, Forum for the Future and HP have teamed up to launch a global competition offering cleantech start ups and entrepreneurs the chance to win $75,000 (£51,000) to help fund the commercialisation of their green products or services.

And BusinessGreen.com has learned that applicants to the competition could also see their proposals put before venture capitalists interested in investing in cleantech companies.

Peter Madden, chief executive of Forum for the Future, said that the new FT Climate Change Challenge was seeking to attract applications from entrepreneurs and businesses working on technical innovations, or new business models that will either cut carbon emissions or help communities adapt to the effects of climate change.

"We want to find those under the radar ideas that have gone past the back of an envelope stage, but don't have the funding to take the product or service to scale," he said. "They might have already gone through the seed funding stage, but will not be ready to go to market."

He added that Forum for the Future had already been contacted by a venture capitalist requesting to see all the applicants that come in and was considering the request. "There's a lot of interest from the investment community in good climate change-related ideas," he said.

Businesses have until the end of January to enter the competition and are expected to provide information on their product or service and how they would use the prize money to commercialise it.

The Forum for the Future will then create a shortlist of 12 entries that will be put before a panel of judges, including FT editor Lionel Barber, Richard Branson, Tesco boss Terry Leahy, and HP chief executive and chairman Mark Hurd. The panel will then select the five best ideas from which FT readers will vote for the winner.

Madden said that as well as being in the running for the $75,000 the short listed firms will also receive valuable publicity that could help attract additional funding. "In some ways the publicity will be almost as important as the prize," he said. "Even the runners up will be profiled in the FT and will be seen by a wide audience."