Visedo is the rising star of the Finnish cleantech scene
To get out of fossil fuels and enable a global energy transition all industries must be electrified and powered by renewable energy. Founded in 2009 in Lappeenranta, the high-tech epicentre of Finland’s Far East, Visedo is an early mover when it comes to electrifying marine vessels such as ferryboats and barges and heavy duty vehicles and machines used in mining, construction and transport. Visedo makes customised electric propulsion systems to convert vessels and vehicles to fully electric or hybrid machines with zero or low emissions. After raising a €13.5M Series C in December 2016 from Emerald, VNT Management, Sinituote, Tesi, Green Campus Innovations and others, Visedo is now the rising star of the Finnish cleantech scene enjoying sustainable traction.
Read moreVolker Junghanns pitches global law firm Dentons
Ecosummit TV: Volker Junghanns pitches Dentons at ECO13 Berlin. Dentons is a newly created global law firm with 2.500 lawyers in 79 offices in 52 countries. Volker works out of the Frankfurt office and is the German contact for their global Tech Startup Center. Volker is passionate about cleantech and recommends to startups to work with lawyers that understand their business model and its challenges from early on. Whether we talk about relevant industry regulations, tax-optimised business organisation or negotiation skills during fundraising, a smart green lawyer is usually worth the investment.
Read moreCleantech Forum Europe 2013 – interview with Richard Youngman about reimagining cleantech
Financing cleantech startups as well as cleantech funds is a tough game. Investors aren’t happy yet with their returns. Consequently, startups and VCs need to reassess their strategies and look for long-term investors with strategic interest such as corporates, family offices and governments. To find advice from industry insiders we look forward to joining the Cleantech Forum Europe in Bilbao taking place on 16-18 April 2013. Ecosummit supports the event and we interview Richard Youngman, Cleantech Group’s MD for Europe and Asia, to warm up for the conference and discuss the current market environment. Richard will also speak at Ecosummit Berlin 2013.
Read moreAndreas Aepfelbacher presents Fraunhofer Venture
Ecosummit TV: Andreas Aepfelbacher, Deputy Head at Fraunhofer Venture, presents the corporate VC of Europe’s largest R&D organisation. Fraunhofer has got 60 research institutes spread out evenly over Germany in which 20.000 employees develop new technologies for a better future powered by an annual budget of €1.9B. Many cleantech startups already cooperate with the most relevant Fraunhofer institute in their specific knowledge area, e.g. Fraunhofer ISE, IWES or IPMS. Fraunhofer offers applied research and welcomes startups, VCs and corporates to discuss new opportunities for creating value together.
Read morePaul Cousens of Autodesk talks about designing better cleantech products
Ecosummit TV: “We are all trying to help promising clean technology get to market faster,” says Paul Cousens, Global Cleantech Business Development Manager at Autodesk, at Ecosummit Düsseldorf 2012. Most of the innovation happens at the early stage level, but early stage startups typically don’t have a lot of money. That’s why Autodesk started their Cleantech Partner Programme that provides free product design software to startups with a value of up to €120K. In his talk, Paul discusses how design technology drives clean technology innovation. “Make all your mistakes in pixels instead of atoms,” sums it up best.
Read moreThomas delos Santos pitches the electric microcar Colibri
Ecosummit TV: Not many people have the guts to found an electric vehicle startup these days. Thomas delos Santos, CEO of Innovative Mobility, is one of them. His pitch at Ecosummit Düsseldorf 2012 provides the full story behind the electric microcar called Colibri. The Colibri will be unveiled at the auto show in Geneva in March 2013. The light electric vehicle (LEV) for city dwellers will cost €8.9K plus monthly battery leasing costs of €55. Colibri shall hit the market in 2015 and can be pre-ordered in 2014 – provided that Thomas manages to raise the rather large funds needed for series development and production. We cross our fingers as we want to see the smart green Colibri on the street.
Read moreFabienne Herlaut looks for promising ecomobility startups In Europe
Ecosummit TV: At Ecosummit Düsseldorf 2012, Fabienne Herlaut, Managing Partner of Ecomobilité Ventures, presents her multi-corporate fund which is focused on investing in ecomobility startups in Europe. Ecomobilité Ventures is financed by French national railway operator SNCF, mobile telephone operator Orange and energy company Total. While the €25M fund is still young, it already invested in 3 sustainable mobility startups: Move About, EZ‐Wheel and Ouicar. Fabienne is looking for a fourth corporate investor from the automotive industry, preferably from Germany. At the same time, she is always interested in meeting fundable ecomobility startups that look for smart green investors with industry expertise.
Read moreAlois Flatz, Zouk Capital, talks about cleantech venture capital 2.0
Ecosummit TV: Alois Flatz, Partner at Zouk Capital, talks about Cleantech Venture Capital 2.0 at Ecosummit Düsseldorf 2012 and explains how investment strategies are changing in the current market. On the one hand, Alois thinks positive as cleantech becomes ubiquitous and affects all aspects of life. On the other hand, he has learned from 20 years of experience that VC investors (general partners) depend on fast exits to be able to raise new funds from their investors (limited partners). Thus, investment horizons are shortening and startups need to generate cash and prove their business models as quickly as possible. Zouk Capital is a late stage investor that accelerates cleantech startups that already have at least €5M revenues, multiplying the value of the company and then selling it again after a couple of years. Don’t approach Zouk without revenues and rather try to get there fast.
Read moreLaurent Giai-Miniet pitches EnOcean
Ecosummit TV: Laurent Giai-Miniet pitches the late stage cleantech startup EnOcean at ECO12 Berlin. EnOcean provides wireless energy harvesting technology for smart green buildings and has become the de facto standard for batteryless building and home automation. Sensors and switches powered by EnOcean modules are used to control the lighting, heating and cooling of rooms depending on room occupancy and other variables such as open or closed windows. EnOcean’s investors include Wellington, Emerald, Chrysalix SET and Siemens. If you are planning a new or retrofit smart green building, EnOcean is the right choice.
Read moreTristan Foerster presents ClimatePartner and climate change management
Ecosummit TV: Tristan Foerster, Managing Director of ClimatePartner, talks about climate change management and explains what companies can do to protect the climate. First, companies have to measure, avoid and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Then they can offset their residual carbon footprint which cannot be reduced any further by buying CO2 certificates in the market. In fact, we are doing it and cooperate with ClimatePartner as Ecosummit’s carbon offset partner. Together we made both ECO12 Berlin and ECO12 Düsseldorf climate neutral. Do you know other cleantech conferences that invest in being climate neutral?
Read moreEcosummit Düsseldorf 2012 happens on 14 and 15 November
Europe’s cleantech scene meets at the Langen Foundation. 15 sponsors are joining.
Press release – Berlin, 24 October 2012: Ecosummit is the Smart Green Business Network for startups, investors and corporates. Europe’s cleantech scene gathers at Ecosummit Düsseldorf 2012 on 14 and 15 November at the Langen Foundation. The international conference focuses on competitive cleantech, resource efficient business models, renewable energy, sustainable mobility, smart green city, venture capital and Lean Cleantech Startup.
Read morePascal Mauberger pitches the hydrogen storage startup McPhy Energy from France
Ecosummit TV: CEO Pascal Mauberger pitches the French hydrogen storage startup at ECO12 Berlin. Founded in 2008, MyPhy Energy raised €15.2M in 2 rounds from Emertec, Sofinnova Partners and Gimv. They are now 35 people and want to grow to over 100 in a few years. McPhy’s technology is able to store large amounts of hydrogen at low pressure and enables onsite production and storage of hydrogen. If you take renewable energy as a source, you can create green hydrogen using an electrolyser from one of McPhy’s partners. McPhy Energy is on a promising growth path and if you need large-scale hydrogen storage, please get in touch with Pascal.
Read moreWhat cleantech startups and VCs in Europe and USA can learn from each other
Ecosummit TV: Europeans don’t think big enough. Michael Linse (KPCB), Pascal Mauberger (McPhy Energy), Oliver Stahl (Entelios) and Bart Markus (Wellington) discuss the differences between the cleantech startup and VC business in USA and Europe. There are many things we can learn from each other. On average, US cleantech startups get 4 times more capital than European ones. This has to do with the different environment in terms of market size, capital availability and competition.
Read moreMarie-Anne Brodschii presents the Veolia Innovation Accelerator
Ecosummit TV: Marie-Anne Brodschii, VP Innovation at Veolia, explains how Veolia drives cleantech innovation and how the cooperation with startups works in practice. The French corporate has got cleantech in its DNA and is pretty big: 230.000 employees generate €29.6B revenues and are active on 5 continents. Veolia’s business is focused on the management of water, waste, energy and energy efficiency. In fact, Veolia is very open towards smart green innovation coming from startups. To foster open innovation, Veolia launched the Veolia Innovation Accelerator (VIA) 2 years ago.
Read moreGreenpocket raises €3.5 Million Series B led by NRW Bank
Greenpocket from Cologne raised €3.5M in their Series B financing round led by NRW Bank, the development bank owned by the State of North Rhine-Westphalia. Greenpocket’s existing investors also participated and include Schwetje Digital (Betafabrik), Rheinland Venture Capital and KfW. The smart green startup was founded in 2009, has 40 employees and provides a powerful software platform for smart metering and smart home management. Greenpocket has 30 utilities as customers in Germany, Austria, Spain and UK. The CEO Thomas Goette pitched his startup at Ecosummit Berlin 2012 and you can watch Thomas on Ecosummit TV. We also did an interview with Thomas to learn more about the financing and Greenpocket’s international strategy.
Read moreBernard Scherrer explains how EDF fosters open innovation
Ecosummit TV: Corporates are elephants and startups are mice. EDF is the French utility elephant on its long way to become a smart green utility. Bernard Scherrer is Head of Open Innovation at EDF and his job is to bring external innovation inside and internal innovation outside. It’s encouraging to see that corporate elephants make an effort to become friends with startup mice. Talk to Bernard if you are a smart green startup and want to do a pilot project with EDF. The best of you may even end up as new suppliers of EDF. To get a briefing on EDF’s open innovation strategy, watch Bernard’s authentic ECO12 talk on Ecosummit TV. I also recommend the fantastic books of Henry Chesbrough who believes that open innovation is the best strategy to innovate in a hyperconnected and hypercollaborative economy.
Read moreKurt Kaltenegger of ABB proposes sustainable art of corporate venturing
Ecosummit TV: Kurt Kaltenegger is CTO of ABB Technology Ventures which did 11 cleantech investments since it was founded 2.5 years ago. ABB’s corporate VC (CVC) approach combines strategic and financial goals when investing in startups that have innovative technologies ABB can use for new business. Now Kurt challenges his fellow VCs to reconsider their current investment strategies by implementing a new symbiosis between VCs and CVCs. Kurt believes that corporates like ABB bring so much expertise and added value to the table that valuations should be lower for them. That’s a cool way to start a negotiation with the startup CEO and her existing investors.
Read moreClimate-KIC Incubator Network Strengthens Early Stage Startups In Europe
Ecosummit TV: The closing panel of day 1 of Ecosummit 2012 in Berlin focused on supporting smart green entrepreneurs in the early stage of the startup process. The panel was presented by Climate-KIC, the European incubator network initiated by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology. Sebastian Matthes, technology section editor of our media partner Wirtschaftswoche, moderated a very informative conversation with Agnes von Matuschka (Center for Entrepreneurship at TU Berlin, University), Dr. Alexander von Frankenberg (High-Tech Gründerfonds, VC), Dr. Ingo Potthof (UnternehmerTUM Fund, VC) and Dr. Maximilian Horster (Climate Neutral Investments – South Pole Carbon, Startup). A couple of interesting issues came up during the panel discussion.
Read moreSmart Hydro Power raises €2.7 Million Series A from eCapital
Smart Hydro Power successfully closed their Series A financing round raising €2.7M from the German Cleantech VC eCapital which values the startup at €8.4M premoney. The seed investor High-Tech Gründerfonds converted their loan in this round. As Smart Hydro Power also won the Ecosummit Jury Award 2012 convincing our 53 judges, this milestone is a welcome opportunity to interview the CEO Karl Kolmsee and his investors about the deal and the prospects of this unique young company. Moreover, this deal proves that we continue to bring the best smart green startups onto our Ecosummit stage. To celebrate, we are happy to publish Karl’s fantastic ECO12 pitch on Ecosummit TV just in time for this story.
Read moreMar Alarcón Pitches P2P Car Sharing Startup Social Car At ECO12 In Berlin
Ecosummit TV: Mar Alarcón is the founder and CEO of Social Car, Spain’s leading p2p car sharing operator. Before Social Car Mar co-founded Social Energy, a PV project developer based in China. I like the brand name Social Car very much and I am very bullish with regards to the business model of p2p car sharing as it is very capital efficient and scaleable. Mar did a great pitch at Ecosummit 2012 on 22-23 March in Berlin.
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