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- January
2017
Icos Capital raises €50M IC Fund III from Akzo Nobel, Bühler, Wuppermann and City of Rotterdam
Corporates play an important role for startups and VCs and often combine direct and fund investments to get access to external innovation. After a 2-year fundraising journey that even included the bankruptcy of one LP, the Dutch VC Icos Capital announces today the first closing of its third fund Icos Capital Fund III at €50M. The fund investors comprise the City of Rotterdam and the corporates Akzo Nobel from the Netherlands, Bühler from Switzerland and Wuppermann from Germany. Peter van Gelderen, one of the 3 GPs managing the fund, describes their investment philosophy as collaborative corporate venturing and emphasizes the close cooperation with the 3 multinationals that don’t have inhouse corporate VC units. According to Peter, new corporate relationships take a lot of time and many meetings until the board makes an LP commitment in your VC fund.
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- June
2016
Ecosummit rocks Amsterdam on 7 July 2016 at Rockstart
This year we bring Ecosummit for the first time to Amsterdam because we like the city and believe it is a good business idea. During the last few months we worked very hard to make it happen and digged deep into the Dutch smart green innovation community. We got a lot of positive response from old and new Ecosummit friends and also sent a few one-way emails into the local internet whose inbox owners don’t value our European startup platform as much as we do – not yet. This is going to change next week when Ecosummit rocks Amsterdam on 7 July at Rockstart, the famous Dutch startup accelerator founded in 2011 by the serial entrepreneur and Yoga enthusiast Oscar Kneppers and a few of his business buddies. Since 2014, Rockstart is an Ecosummit partner that showcases their smart energy portfolio every year on stage and Ecosummit TV. In March 2016, the lottery-funded impact VC DOEN Foundation invested in Rockstart because both organisations share the same vision that entrepreneurs are able to solve the big problems of our planet, society and economy.
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- February
2016
SET Ventures raises €60M SET Fund II from EIF, Sitra, Shell, Essent, Delta and Korys
Fundraising is tough, time- and travel-intensive and needs a fair amount of salesmanship – not only for startups but also for VCs. Fund managers have to convince fund investors that they can make money for their Limited Partners (LPs). First, General Partners (GPs) need to build a strong portfolio by wisely investing into the best startups they can find. Then they need to create a lot of value post-investment by quickly growing their portfolio companies with the ultimate goal of realising successful exits, i.e. trade sales (the rule) or IPOs (the exception). GPs Rene Savelsberg and Wouter Jonk are Amsterdam-based smart energy VCs who raised their first SET Fund I in 2007 after having learned the trade as Corporate VCs at Philips. Up to now, they have 3 good exits under their belt: Epyon to ABB in 2011, AlertMe to British Gas in 2015 and Sefaira to Trimble on 8 February 2016. Good exits are a key requirement for raising a second fund as LPs look for track record in terms of proven capability to generate returns. Yesterday, SET Ventures announced the first closing of SET Fund II at €60M and plans to add a few more LPs until March 2016.
Read more- 31
- July
2014
Peter van Gelderen presents Icos Capital and the art of collaborative corporate venturing
Ecosummit TV: Dutch smart green VC Peter van Gelderen presents Icos Capital and the art of collaborative corporate venturing at ECO13 London. Founded in 2006, Icos Capital has got €75M under management and manages a portfolio of 8 cleantech startups. One of the best performing portfolio companies is Greenclouds that aggregates idle IT resources in the cloud. Recently Icos exited Resteel and currently they are on the fundraising trail for their new cleantech fund. The Amsterdam-based VC is focused on the early stage and close cooperation with their LPs of which many are corporates with deep industry expertise and an open innovation strategy. In the past, Peter has learned that cleantech means complex markets that need industry expertise, the most promising startups often need massive support and many follow-on investments and corporate LPs bring technology insight and are able to validate market demand for the startups’ products. However, the relationship between a corporate LP and the VC only works if the corporation is willing to spend a lot of time with the portfolio companies while leaving the financial decisions to the fund manager.
Read more- 15
- December
2013
Rene Savelsberg pitches the investment strategy of Chrysalix SET
Ecosummit TV: Rene Savelsberg pitches the investment strategy of Chrysalix SET at ECO13 London. The Amsterdam-based smart green VC was founded in 2007 and invests in technology companies that are in the early growth stage and have a sustainable impact on the future use of energy. As their first SET Fund I of €40M is fully allocated, Rene and his general partners (GPs) are raising their second SET Fund II targeting €100M. This fund size enables a larger portfolio and management team as well as investing more capital per startup in multiple follow-on rounds without dilution. VCs typically want to increase rather than decrease their position in the best performing startups in their portfolio.
Read more- 11
- August
2013
Markus 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.
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- July
2013
Rene 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 more- 26
- March
2013
Peter 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.
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