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- September
2019
Smart green VCs you should know
There are many smart green VCs in Europe and the US that back startups in energy, mobility, buildings, cities, materials, food and circular economy to create impact as well as environmental, financial and strategic returns for their fund investors (LPs). In the VC food chain, early stage investors prefer to invest, at lower valuations and higher risk, in the Seed, Series A and Series B financing rounds of young startups working on product market fit and traction (users, customers, revenues). On the other hand, late stage VCs like shorter holding periods and time-to-exit and, consequently, advanced startups with more than €5M revenues, experienced management teams and fast growth. The existence of KPIs, ideally going up over time, makes the life of every investor easier. Facing climate change, technology revolution and global competition, the majority of corporates have adopted corporate venturing and open innovation strategies in order to invest in and do business with startups. The result are different investment strategies and sometimes competing portfolios that startups should know before pitching. Let’s co-invest and meet at Ecosummit Berlin.
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- August
2014
Felix Krause pitches Milk the Sun
Ecosummit TV: Felix Krause pitches Milk the Sun at ECO13 London. Since their launch at ECO12 Berlin the German startup made a lot of progress in a very short period of time. Milk the Sun rolled out globally their online marketplace for PV systems that matches old investors (sellers) and new investors (buyers) of existing or planned PV assets by creating a so-called secondary market. More than 1 GW in PV projects looking for new investors are listed on the web-based platform. This brings liquidity to a large but intransparent market where feed-in-tariffs and investments are valid for 20 years. In January 2014, Milk the Sun raised a seed round from Gründerfonds Münsterland (managed by Ecapital) and co-investor Howaldt Energies. As Milk the Sun is cash-flow positive since 2013 we expect a lot more interest from European cleantech VCs in their next round.
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- May
2014
Trued Holmquist pitches ATC Industrial Group from Sweden
Ecosummit TV: Trued Holmquist pitches ATC Industrial Group from Sweden at ECO13 London. ATC develops a self-learning home energy management system called Scypho. Targeting single family houses the system uses neural network technology to provide comfort on demand to the end users. Scypho controls the heating and cooling system of the building using a gateway, sensors and smartphones as user interface and enables energy cost savings of up to 30%. Up to now ATC has been active in Sweden and wants to raise €2.5M to grow faster and enter new international markets. In the future, Scypho will be extended to serve as a smart home platform that integrates more services such as lighting control or intelligent demand response. As the smart home marketplace is quite crowded already, it will be interesting to watch which startups outrun the competition.
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- May
2014
Franz Salzmann pitches Lock8 – the Airbnb for bicycles
Ecosummit TV: Franz Salzmann pitches Lock8 at ECO13 London. Their bikes got stolen frequently at Oxford University. To solve this problem, Franz Salzmann and his co-founder Daniel Zajarias-Fainsod developed Lock8, a sensor smart, GPS tracked and online bicycle lock. The Lock8 app locates available bicycles and functions as the wireless key for the smart lock – all you need to build a global Airbnb for bicycles. Berlin-based Christophe Maire (Atlantic Internet) invested early, followed by a couple of million Euro from Horizons Ventures in Hong Kong and Otto Capital. Lock8 is a cool product that works well on Kickstarter to aggregate pre-orders and safe cycling enthusiasts. All set for a successful market launch.
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- April
2014
Martin Mohr pitches Ecoduna from Austria
Ecosummit TV: Martin Mohr pitches Ecoduna at ECO13 London. Founded in 2009, the Austrian startup develops algae production systems and is one of the global technology leaders. Ecoduna already makes money in the food supplement market with high-value Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids. Algae production will be price competitive in the food market in 2 years, the plastics market in 4-5 years and the energy market in 8-12 years. Ecoduna’s vertical photobioreactors are supposed to be better than the competition as they work in a continuous, software-controlled process with neither too much nor too little light. In 2013, Ecoduna opened their own algae production plant in Austria. A large number of partners is in the pipeline to install more industrial production capacity. Get in touch with Martin if you also believe in the long-term business opportunity of smart algae production and commercialisation.
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- April
2014
Christina di Sano pitches Smart Hydro Power
Ecosummit TV: Christina di Sano pitches Smart Hydro Power at ECO13 London. Founded in 2010, Smart Hydro Power develops a kinetic hydro power turbine that uses the movement of rivers to produce clean energy. The hydro power plants are targeted at offgrid communities that up to now had to rely on costly and dirty diesel generators. Their first product is a 5 KW turbine with built-in debris protection that costs €12.5K. Smart Hydro Power is backed by Ecapital and High-tech Gründerfonds and won the Ecosummit Award 2012 Gold medal. The German startup is currently fundraising and interested in talking to a new lead investor.
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- February
2014
Mats Pettersson pitches Ecofective from Sweden
Ecosummit TV: Mats Pettersson pitches Ecofective at ECO13 London. The Swedish-German startup focuses on energy cost savings in existing buildings by using their energy management system called EE2. Founded in 2009 as a consulting firm, Ecofective pivoted in 2012 to become a product company and sell a cost-effective solution for the mass market of multi-tenant and small office buildings. Moreover, Ecofective is getting ready for Energy Performance Contracting (EPC) as a mechanism to accelerate the rollout of their smart green building solution. EE2 enables cost savings of 13-25%, has been installed in over 120 buildings in Sweden and Germany and was approved by the Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics.
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- February
2014
Mads Jensen pitches Sefaira
Ecosummit TV: Mads Jensen pitches Sefaira at ECO13 London. Buildings are complex systems which integrate many interdependent smart green technologies including building materials, orientation, air ventilation, glazing, insulation, shading, heating, cooling and lighting. To optimise this system Sefaira makes software for high performance building design and enables architects to analyse their designs until they are perfect in terms of energy footprint and cost of operations. Founded in 2009, the UK-US startup launched in 2012 and convinced over 200 architecture firms to use the software in their building design process. Sefaira raised €13M ($18M) from Chrysalix SET, Braemar Energy Ventures and Hermes GPE and won the Ecosummit Award 2013 Gold medal. We like the way Sefaira fosters smart green cities and are happy that Mads joined our Ecosummit Advisors.
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- December
2013
Christoph Ostermann pitches Sonnenbatterie from Wildpoldsried
Ecosummit TV: Christoph Ostermann pitches Sonnenbatterie at ECO13 London. The solar battery integrates energy storage with residential PV systems. The intelligent storage solution has got a built-in smart meter that enables the management of local energy production and consumption. By using a mobile app the houseowner decides whether to feed-in or directly consume the homemade electricity. Sonnenbatterie is backed by eCapital and their sales curve looks beautiful. Founded in 2010, Sonnenbatterie launched in 2011 and enjoys €11M revenues in 2013. At ECO13 Berlin, Sonnenbatterie won the Ecosummit Award Jury Bronze medal in recognition of their outstanding business potential. In our opinion, Christoph and his team of Bavarian grid parity surfers are one of the hottest cleantech startups in Germany.
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- December
2013
Smart green dealflow: E-volo crowdfunding, Lock8, Yetu, Thermondo and Zim Plant Technology exit
5 startups that pitched at Ecosummit conferences in the past celebrate new funding rounds. Within 3 days, 9 hours and 52 minutes electric aviation pioneer E-volo raised €1.2M in a record-breaking crowdfunding event on Seedmatch. Just in time, the Karlsruhe-based cleantech startup managed the first unmanned flight with the prototype of their green Volocopter VC 200 (see video below). Ecosummit contributed €1K and joined a group of 750 fearless crowd investors that agree that this worldwide innovation is ready for take off. With the help of E-volo Seedmatch established firmly as Germany’s leading crowdfunding platform for startups having raised over €10M for 50 projects since August 2011.
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- December
2013
Harry Böhme tells the cleantech exit story of Novaled to Samsung
Ecosummit TV: CFO Harry Böhme tells the cleantech exit story of Novaled to Samsung at ECO13 London. Founded in 2001, the Dresden-based startup is a world leader in OLED (Organic LED) materials and Samsung is the biggest customer. In September 2011, Corporate VC Samsung Ventures invested and Novaled’s management made sure to limit Samsung’s stake and control to 10%. 2 years later, Samsung Cheil Industries (aka Samsung Chemical) and Samsung Electronics acquired the remaining 90% for €260M, including an earnout of €30M bound to reaching further milestones. Novaled’s revenues grew from €10M in 2010 to €26M in 2012 (price sales ratio of 10). With €29M of venture capital injected in Novaled the returns are pretty healthy.
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- October
2013
Jan Michael Hess opens Ecosummit London 2013
Ecosummit TV: Jan Michael Hess opens Ecosummit London 2013. Our 6th cleantech conference took place on 15-16 October at the Crystal, the urban sustainability HQ of Siemens in the Docklands. 150 participants came together to discuss smart green cities and to pitch new solutions and investment opportunities. The Crystal is the perfect location for Ecosummit London. Moreover, the LEED Platinum building is a role model for other corporates that want to co-invent the urban future and invest in a long-term technology showcase and marketing tool. Our highlight was the Ecomobilité Ventures Flinc deal announced at ECO13 London. After the NRW Bank O-Flexx investment, this is already the second deal facilitated by Ecosummit.
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- October
2013
Oliver Luenstedt pitches Carzapp from Berlin
Ecosummit TV: Oliver Lünstedt pitches Carzapp at ECO13 Berlin. While there are now 4 p2p car sharing startups in the German market, Carzapp is the first one to have developed their own hardware solution called ZappKit. The ZappKit enables wireless car access with smartphones used as digital keys. The magic hardware box also includes GPS and an immobiliser that prevents theft. While Carzapp is about to start their beta test in Berlin, they also offer their ZappKit to companies with significant car fleets they want to share. The B2B business of Carzapp is bound to grow quickly as the ZappKit is pretty price competitive. Carzapp is backed by angels and raised €250K in a crowdfunding round on Seedmatch earlier this year. Now Carzapp looks for fresh money to accelerate its growth. Meet Oliver at ECO13 London to get an update and talk smart green business.
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- October
2013
Knut Hechtfischer pitches Ubitricity
Ecosummit TV: Knut Hechtfischer pitches Ubitricity at ECO13 Berlin. The Berlin-based cleantech startup develops a cost-efficient charging solution for electric vehicles by putting the intelligence into the charging cable. This allows mobile metering wherever the user wants to buy electricity from. Recently, they became famous for integrating their solution in street lights. Up to now, Ubitricity raised €5.4M and is backed by Earlybird, IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft and Heinz Dürr (largest shareholder of Dürr, former CEO of AEG and Deutsche Bahn). Founded in 2008, Ubitricity plans to launch Mobile Metering in 2014, just-in-time when new electric cars hit the market. Meet Knut at ECO13 London next week to get an update and learn about their high risk, high return investment opportunity. That’s what venture capital is all about, isn’t it?
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- October
2013
Dirk Dens pitches Govecs
Ecosummit TV: Electric mobility on 2 wheels grows a lot faster than on 4 wheels. Dirk Dens pitches Govecs at ECO13 Berlin and shows how Govecs is surfing this VC-friendly trend. The Munich-based late stage startup is backed by Gimv and makes very cool electric scooters that are manufactured in Wroclaw, Poland. Govecs makes scooters not only for consumers but also for companies, especially urban delivery services. The new trend is scooter sharing and Govecs recently started the first project together with Ecooltra in Barcelona. If Govecs continues to execute its strategy well, they may be an exit candidate rather soon.
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- October
2013
Thomas Goette pitches Greenpocket
Ecosummit TV: Thomas Goette pitches Greenpocket at ECO13 Berlin. In particular, Thomas talked about their multi-level benchmarking tool that is based on smart meter data and allows to compare energy consumption data and receive recommendations for optimisation.The smart green startup from Cologne is backed by NRW Bank, Schwetje Digital (Betafabrik), Rheinland Venture Capital and KfW. Founded in 2009, Greenpocket has 30 employees and provides a powerful software platform for smart metering and smart home management. Greenpocket has got over 40 utilities and telcos as customers in Germany, Austria, Spain and UK.
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- September
2013
Maximilian Erb presents the cleantech investment strategy of NRW Bank
Ecosummit TV: Maximilian Erb presents NRW Bank at ECO13 Berlin. The regional development bank of North-Rhine Westphalia (NRW) is pretty active in cleantech venture capital. Smart green startups in their direct portfolio inlude Direvo, Greenpocket, Evocatal and O-Flexx. The cool thing is that Max of NRW Bank met Holger of O-Flexx at ECO12 Berlin for the first time. This is a wonderful testimonial that the Ecosummit platform really works and matchmakes cleantech startups and VCs. We are proud of it. And we also appreciate the great work that NRW Bank is doing for Germany’s cleantech startups.
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- September
2013
Philipp Pausder pitches Thermondo (heizkosten-senken.de)
Philipp Pausder, CEO of Thermondo (formerly known as FutureWatt), pitches their new online portal for heating cost reduction at ECO13 Berlin. The idea is to make buying heat as simple as buying electricity. At the same time, heating is often neglected in the discussion about the Energiewende (energy transition). In fact, consumers can save a lot of money and energy when they buy a new heating system and move from oil to gas or wood pellets. Combined heat and power (CHP) is a big trend in the consumer market, too. Most steps in the purchase process can be organised online before a plumber comes to your house to install the new heating system. Philipp is very happy with their traction and they just closed their seed round. But the heating e-commerce business will need more venture capital to grow, so put Thermondo on your watch list and get in touch.
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- September
2013
Niels Beisinghoff pitches Bettertaxi
Ecosummit TV: Niels Beisinghoff pitches Bettertaxi at Ecosummit Berlin 2013. The Berlin-based smart green startup enters a crowded market of mobility apps and competes directly with Mytaxi. However, Bettertaxi connects to existing taxi dispatch centres and works everywhere in Germany. They also want to enable taxi ride sharing to make taxi mobility cheaper and greener. This is a cool idea which we had back in 2010 when we envisioned Sustainable Social Mobility (Weniger Autos ist mehr). Now Bettertaxi wants to raise €500K to accelerate its growth. Check out their iPhone and Android app to find out which one is the best taxi service in Germany. The ultimate goal are ubiquitous shared electric taxis. That’s what smart green cities really need.
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- August
2013
Electric aviation pioneer Alexander Zosel pitches E-volo
Ecosummit TV: Alexander Zosel pitches E-volo at ECO13 Berlin. The German cleantech startup develops an electric helicopter that will revolutionise urban aviation within the next 10 years. The Volocopter is developed by a consortium of companies and universities that received a €2M grant from the German government. Moreover, the German aviation authority defined a new class of aircraft specifically for the Volocopter. As of today, E-volo plans a slow market entry with a pre-series of 10 Volocopters in 2015. As the new electric helicopter category is a potential multi-billion market opportunity, E-volo will soon realise that they need to raise substantial amounts of venture capital to guarantee high-quality production on the ground as well as safety in the air. For now, they continue their startup rock’n’roll pioneering electric aviation and inventing new PR stunts.
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