WeSustain raises €4M Series B from VNT Management, HTGF, KfW and MBG
Ecosummit TV: Every company in every industry has to go green and make and sell sustainable products. At the same time, smart green investors take sustainability reports very seriously when making investment decisions. In September 2014, the EU Commission issued their long-awaited directive for mandatory sustainability reports for companies with more than 500 employees that has to be translated into national law within 2 years. Now Enterprise Sustainability Management (ESM) software providers like WeSustain are en vogue. CEO Manfred Heil expects the market to triple within the next 4 years. Customer references like Daimler, Commerzbank and Allianz as well as reseller Telekom will help the well positioned German startup and its team of 20 employees to grow even faster than the market.
We met Peter Auner at the HTGF Partnering Conference 2014 on 29 January. Peter joined VNT Management in 2013 as their new man in Germany, succeeding Torsten Wipiejewski who pitched the Finnish fund at ECO13 Berlin. VNT is one of Europe’s leading smart green VCs with €157M assets under management and the European Investment Fund among the LPs of their Power Fund III. Preparing for ECO14 Berlin, Peter sourced WeSustain by screening Ecosummit’s public deal flow. In April 2014, WeSustain presented at VNT’s Munich office in front of the German investment team including Peter, Harri Ollila and Jussi Palmroth. At ECO14 Berlin in June, COO Andre Borngräber gave company updates on stage, Ecosummit TV, and, more privately, on the terrace. Today, WeSustain raises €4M Series B from VNT Management, HTGF, KfW and MBG. VNT’s first pure software deal took 8 months to close from the first meeting in April. We feel very honoured to have facilitated this partnership because WeSustain joined our first Green Venture Summit 2010, just before the company’s foundation.
The ECO14 Berlin presentation slides of Andre are available as PDF.
Tags: Andre Borngräber, ECO11 Berlin, ECO12 Berlin, ECO14 Berlin, Ecosummit Berlin 2014, EIF, Enterprise Sustainability Management, European Investment Fund, Green Venture Summit 2010, GVS10 Berlin, Harri Ollila, HTGF, Jussi Palmroth, Manfred Heil, MBG Hannover, Peter Auner, Public Deal Flow, Series B, Smart Green Startup, Smart Green VC, Sustainability Management, Sustainability Reports, VNT Management, Wesustain