Establishing an effective investment ecosystem in Vancouver's cleantech cluster

Cleantech clusters are geographic concentrations of specialized companies in different sectors such as hydrogen and fuel cells. Vancouver’s investment ecosystem, reflecting the interaction of stakeholders for related economic activities, must attract more financing to hydrogen fuel cell startups in the cluster. This problem jeopardizes the development and commercialization of hydrogen fuel cell technologies in Vancouver’s ecosystem. I find that Vancouver's investment ecosystem offers credit supply, loan guarantees and grants to startups at Series A and B, early investments to grow startups. I conducted thirty-six interviews with stakeholders in Silicon Valley, Cambridge, Singapore, Tel-Aviv and Vancouver to compare the policy tools adopted to financially support startups. After analysing these ecosystems, I find that Vancouver lacks tax incentives and co-investment that could be adopted to financially assist startups. A combination of tax incentives, co-investments, loan guarantees, credit supply and grants policy tools can help Vancouver establish a more successful investment ecosystem.