Ikea spends big on clean tech start ups

Here’s an interesting one from the folk over at Cleantech. Apparently, it seems, everyone’s favourite Swedish monolithic furniture flogger and Edmonton riot provoker

Ikea is getting out its wallet and spanking a nice round €50 million on clean tech start ups.

Presumably it just went into the shop for a couple of cereal bowls and a pack of batteries but couldn’t resist the prices and doubtless will be spending the next weekend trying to assemble the clean tech start fund, only to find out it’s lost the allen key.

Cleantech says that Ikea’s masterplan with regard to the start-ups is to spend the €50 million over the next five years in some five or six companies, with a view to flogging all the resulting green goodies – think solar panels and the like – through its stores or selling them on to the suppliers who provide all the goods that later turn up in shared housing throughout the land.

The five areas attracting the eyes of Ikea’s moneymen – solar panels, alternative light sources, product materials, energy efficiency, and water saving and purification – which will all be worked out under the usual Ikea schtick of low prices.

While Ikea is promising to be active in all the start-ups it gets involved in, there’s no word as yet on whether they can expect free meatballs.