Green on green: Colorado Science and Technology Innovation Reinvestment Act will nurture cleantech startups.

Question: How do you turn $1 into $8? Answer: Plant that seed money in Colorado's fertile cleantech industry, then sit back and watch it grow.

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The Colorado Science and Technology Innovation Reinvestment Act, championed by the Colorado Cleantech Industry Association (CCIA) and passed by the Legislature this year, is designed to do exactly that.

"In the past and even more importantly recently, venture capital has dried up in the very early stages for technology commercialization for new companies and growing companies," CCIA Executive Director Christine Shapard says. "'This provides more money in that early stage when there's really no money coming from elsewhere."

The act provides $2 million annually for the Clean Technology Discovery Evaluation Grant program, which "provides matching grants to Colorado's universities for market assessments of their clean technologies, to companies comniercializing university clean technologies and to initiatives that serve to build the infrastructure that moves university technologies into the marketplace," says state.Sen. Rollie Heath, who co-sponsored the bill with state Reps. Jim Riesberg and Cheri Gerou.

While there has been emphasis in the past on deploying energy technology, "This program is the first money focused on clcameeh innovation." Shapard says.

It's modeled after a grant program that has successfully created jobs, new companies and leveraged millions in outside funding for the bioseience sector in Colorado, Shapard says. In three years, the state's $8.2 million investment in the Bioscience Discovery Evaluation Grant Program generated 18 new companies, created 149 direct jobs, 524 indirect jobs and $68 million in outside capital, an eightfold increase.

"Colorado has shown great promise in developing as an overall leader in the cleantech industry and the biggest challenge we've seen fin our clients and future clients is the lack of' funding that was a result of the economic recession. This legislation promises to help fill that gap." says Greg Pfahl, a partner at the accounting firm of Hem and Associates who counts early stage cicantech companies among his clentech and believes that this program "will help to accelerate company growth where it is needed the most."

"It's very, very important money," says Alfred "Buz" Brown, chairman and CEO of Boulder-based ION Engineering, which licensed its clean technology from the University of Colorado. "One critical use is doing that...