- 25
- September
2016
Heliatek raises €80M Series D to increase production capacity by a factor of 40
Capital-intensive smart green startups in Europe aiming at building their own hardware factories have a hard time fundraising. Financially motivated VCs require capital efficiency and prefer hardware startups that outsource manufacturing and the necessary CAPEX. Financing new PV factories in Europe is even more difficult due to China’s hegemony. It turns out it can only be done if you develop the next generation of PV technology, continuously improve efficiency and work diligently on building a co-investor syndicate of family offices, corporates and governments. Keep in mind that it was the Chinese government that backed a myriad of Chinese manufacturers to hijack the global PV industry. After a very long fundraising journey, 10-year old Organic Photovoltaics (OPV) pioneer Heliatek finally found the capital to build its second 3G solar factory in Dresden, Germany’s epicentre of photonics and organic semiconductors.
Read more- 18
- June
2013
Richard Youngman presents the third wave of cleantech companies at ECO13 Berlin
Ecosummit TV: Cleantech is a theme spanning many industries including energy, transportation, buildings and agriculture. At ECO13 Berlin, Cleantech Group’s Richard Youngman shares his optimism and talks about the third wave of cleantech companies coming to the market with scalable value propositions that follow the idea of doing more with less. Richard confirms that cleanweb is an attractive investment area with many lean startups applying smart algorithms to all kinds of resource efficiency challenges. Geographically speaking, Richard votes for China as the key target market startups should approach rather sooner than later due to the huge demand stemming from a nationwide industrial policy inspired by cleantech.
Read more- 22
- January
2013
Call for ambassadors to support Ecosummit Berlin 2013
Ecosummit Ambassadors are planetfriendly university graduates with international background who aim at a career in the Smart Green Economy. Ecosummit Ambassadors support us before and during Ecosummit Berlin on 4-5 June 2013. The deal is simple: As ambassador you get a free ECO13 ticket and work 50% of your time on conference set up, registration, speaker management, participant service, microphone runner and cloakroom. Moreover, ambassadors get involved in the development and promotion of our new online platform Ecosummit Market. We selected 23 Ecosummit Ambassadors and our ECO13 Berlin team is complete. Check out Ecosummit London 2013 for your next chance to become Ecosummit Ambassador.
Read more- 14
- October
2012
Lean cleantech startup – New Context Conference Tokyo 2012
Only successful cleantech startups have a positive impact on climate change and global resource problems. The problem is that most hardware-based cleantech startups are very capital and time intensive. Entrepreneurs and investors constantly look for new strategies to accelerate the development and marketing of smart green innovation. Applying the lean startup philosophy to cleantech could be the perfect solution. Cleantech startups also search for scalable business model, product market fit, validated learning from customers and engine of growth. In this context, it was a special honour to go to Japan – especially after Fukushima – and speak about Lean Cleantech Startup at the spectacular New Context Conference Tokyo 2012 two weeks ago.
Read more- 8
- October
2012
Call for ambassadors to support Ecosummit Düsseldorf 2012
Ecosummit Ambassadors are planetfriendly university graduates with international background who aim at a career in the Smart Green Economy to solve our global climate, resource and economic problems. We selected 13 Ecosummit Ambassadors to support us before and during Ecosummit Düsseldorf on 14-15 November 2012. The deal is simple: As ambassador you get a free ECO12 ticket and work 50% of your time in important jobs such as registration, speaker management, networking angel, participant service, microphone runner and cloakroom. Our Ecosummit Düsseldorf team is complete now.
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