About three-quarters of the 41 companies on the U.S. Embassy's list of interesting clean tech companies in Sweden have already benefited from the exposure, according to an Embassy survey.

• Thirty companies responded that they had been contacted by potential American investors;
• Twenty-six companies said that they had seen an increase in market access opportunities;
• Eleven companies have experienced a positive effect on market sales;
• Three research-oriented companies reported increased funding after appearing on the Embassy list.

"It's fantastic," bioenergy entrepreneur Bengt-Erik Löfgren told Göteborgs-Posten. "It has gotten enormous attention - in fact, more overseas than here in Sweden."

Morphic Technologies, an alternative energy company based in Karlskoga, received three new investments from the United States as a result of being on the list. The American investors all noted that they were impressed with the One Big Thing. Morphic also received financing from investors in the U.K. and Germany who were familiar with the list.

The survey was carried out in December and January to measure the impact of the Embassy-compiled list. Thirty-eight of the 41 companies on the list responded to the survey.

U.S. Ambassador to Sweden Michael Wood will be sharing information about the Swedish companies with American business people during the Washington International Renewable Energy Conference (WIREC) in March, and then this spring with U.S. investors on the East Coast at a meeting in Boston, and with participants at Swedish American Chamber of Commerce events in Washington, D.C. and San Diego.

"We want to do everything possible to match up U.S. capital with Swedish innovation to achieve an alternative energy breakthrough," Ambassador Wood said. "The events this spring will provide important opportunities to accelerate U.S.-Swedish cooperation to meet the challenges of energy security and climate change."

The Ambassador released the original list of about 30 alternative-energy companies to American investors in California last spring. The list was subsequently updated with additional Swedish companies added.

The expanded list reflects a wider scope to include companies that are interested in exploring or expanding in the U.S. marketplace or are interested in partnering with American companies.

The list includes companies that the Ambassador or other Embassy staff members have visited, firms or individual innovators that were brought to the Embassy's attention by the Swedish government and other contacts within Sweden, and companies that contacted the Embassy directly.

One of the companies -- Swedish Biofuels AB, a Stockholm-based company that develops alternative motor fuels -- has already been selected to receive research funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a division of the U.S. Department of Defense.

For more information, please see: www.usemb.se/environment.