ParkBee raises €1.8M from InnovationQuarter and angels
Wouter de Bruijne pitched ParkBee at Ecosummit Amsterdam on 7 July 2016 and explained why sharing commercial parking assets is a smart green business idea. Today, Wouter and the Co-founders Jian Jiang and Tom Buchmann celebrate having raised €1.8M from InnovationQuarter, the regional development agency for West Holland, and 4 undisclosed angel investors. The Dutch startup makes unused private parking garages, mainly office building car parks, available to the public. This makes sense as cars are parking most of the time and everybody knows how difficult it is to find parking in crowded city centres, especially when you are in a hurry to your next business meeting or running multiple private errands on a busy day. ParkBee is integrated in the Dutch parking apps Parkmobile, which is majority owned by BMW since 2015, and Park-line rather than trying to build their own consumer brand.
Read moreMarkus Leuenberger pitches the Dutch cleantech institute ECN
Ecosummit TV: Markus Leuenberger pitches ECN at ECO13 Berlin. The Dutch research institute is based in a beautiful location in the dunes north of Amsterdam. 550 researchers and experts develop new green technologies with a strong focus on renewable energy and energy storage including Power to Gas. Recently, ECN launched a new technical due diligence service for cleantech VCs across Europe. This makes a lot of sense as many cleantech VCs don’t have sufficient inhouse competence in each of the many cross-industry cleantech markets. Moreover, the cleantech institute also helps startups during product development. A small version of Fraunhofer in Germany, ECN looks like they are equally smart and very entrepreneurial. If you need deep cleantech technology expertise, go and talk to ECN.
Read moreCall for ambassadors to support Ecosummit London 2013
Ecosummit Ambassadors are planetfriendly university graduates with international background who aim at a career in the Smart Green Economy. Ecosummit Ambassadors support us during Ecosummit London on 15-16 October 2013 at the Crystal, the urban sustainability HQ of Siemens in the Docklands. The deal is simple: As ambassador you get a free ECO13 London ticket and work 50% of your time on conference set up, registration, speaker management, participant service, microphone runner and cloakroom. We selected 11 Ecosummit Ambassadors and our team is complete.
Read moreRene Savelsberg pitches cleantech VC Chrysalix SET from Amsterdam
Ecosummit TV: Rene Savelsberg pitches Chrysalix SET at ECO13 Berlin. Rene believes that the investment focus on technologies with capital-efficient business models as well as their global expertise are the key success factors to achieve returns in the big cleantech universe. The Dutch VC is one of the few players that managed to successfully exit a portfolio company. They sold Epyon to ABB in 2011 which became the new EV fast charging business unit of the Swiss corporate. Chrysalix SET’s active portfolio includes Enocean, Alertme, Sefaira and the new investment Luxexcel, a 3D printing technology company focused on the LED industry. We are happy that Rene joined our Ecosummit Advisors and look forward to accelerating the best startups in the market.
Read moreSmart green dealflow: Ubitricity, Saperatec, Skeleton, Waste2Chemical, O-Flexx and Romo Wind
Financing cleantech startups is a tough game these days. You need a strong team, product market fit and, even better, customers and revenues. In this difficult market environment, it is a great pleasure to report that 6 smart green startups managed to raise new venture capital: Ubitricity (around €3.5M, Germany), Saperatec (€3.3M, Germany), Skeleton (€2.2M, Estonia), Waste2Chemical (undisclosed, Netherlands), O-Flexx (€2.4M, Germany) and Romo Wind (€4.8M, Switzerland). The active cleantech VCs include Earlybird, IBB, NRW Bank, HTGF, eCapital, Dutch Greentech Fund, Emerald, Yellow&Blue, ABB and b-to-v. Let’s take a closer look at the startups and their new investors.
Read morePeter van Gelderen pitches early stage cleantech VC Icos Capital from the Netherlands
Ecosummit TV: Peter van Gelderen is a Dutch piano-playing cleantech investor who pitches his VC firm Icos Capital at ECO12 Düsseldorf. Founded in 2006, Icos Capital has got €75M under management and a portfolio of 9 cleantech startups. Peter likes to point out that his firm is an early stage investor because this is where the fun is and smart green company builders are needed the most. To be successful as early stage Cleantech VC, close relationships with corporates are a key success factor. Peter is Ecosummit Advisor and currently raises a new fund to which he invites German corporates as new LPs. Whether you are a corporate or startup, go and find Peter to discuss the art of early stage cleantech investing and the benefits of working together.
Read moreStefan Roest pitches Dutch solar testing startup Eternal Sun
Ecosummit TV: Eternal Sun was a real highlight at Ecosummit Düsseldorf 2012. The lean cleantech startup from TU Delft in the Netherlands develops and manufactures state-of-the-art solar testing equipment and found customers all over the world within 1.5 years after company foundation. The audience was impressed by the fact that Eternal Sun focuses so well on lean product development and fast customer development while still being self-funded by the founders. CTO Stefan Roest delivers an awesome pitch on Ecosummit TV and now looks for VCs that know the solar testing market well and can help scale sales and production.
Read moreSmart green dealflow: SolarFuel, Govecs, Tiramizoo, Sortech and Evodos
5 smart green startups that are connected to Ecosummit in various ways successfully raised new venture capital during the last months: Power to Gas pioneer SolarFuel (€7.5M, Germany), electric scooter maker Govecs (€10M, Germany), bike messenger platform Tiramizoo (undisclosed, Germany), sustainable cooling provider Sortech (undisclosed, Germany) and algae harvester Evodos (undisclosed, Netherlands). Let’s take a closer look at the products and business models of the startups and their new investors.
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