Cleantech Group / Cleantech Network Expensive Memberships, Questionable Databases, Overhyped Forums & Conferences San Francisco, California

Cleantech Network, also known as Cleantech Group, is a for-profit membership organization that supposedly helps investors who want information, data, and opportunities to invest in new, upstart, entrepreneurial clean and green technology companies.  These include alternative energy, recycling, biofuels, carbon capture, water purification,etc.  The company is not at all what it appears to be when you click on the website or read news about them online.

This company sells very expensive and confusing membership packages, and are sold via telemarketing boiler room-type operation.  High pressure sales, with different prices for different customers depending upon how much they the salesperson feels they can get out of the prospect, is the norm.  The databases they sell are filled with outdated information, inaccurate information, and lack specific details in key areas.  They are very substandard compared to Dow Jones and other well-known, respectable information sources.  Yearly membership turnover is very high, which is why they need to hustle their memberships year after year, and pester and besiege people's email inbox with tons of emails which are mainly sales solicitations of one sort or another.  NEVER provide this company with your email address:  your inbox will never forgive you for it!

The conferences and forums they host are a joke!  At full retail price, they charge nearly $2,500 to attend, and again, they will charge different prices to people who can afford to spend different amounts.  They claim that the entrepreneurs who come to this event might gain venture capital backing and funding, but the claims are very exaggerated and not backed up by fact.  The vast majority of businesspeople attending, attempting to find capital, will NOT obtain funding.  End of story.  The conferences hosted by other firms (such as Cleantech Summit) are much less costly, have a huge roster of well-known speakers, and is "meaty" and filled with relevant workshops.  Cleantech Network sessions are routinely ranked as "average" or "below average" and turnover at these events are high.

The two things this company excels at is:  1) using their name to establish dominance in the field and in search engines, and 2)  using hype and high-pressure sales and fake appeals to credibility and name recognition to gain customer trust.