- 11
- February
2018
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 and food to create impact and returns for their fund investors. In the VC food chain, early stage investors love to invest, at lower valuations and higher risk, in young startups that still work on product-market fit. On the other hand, late stage VCs prefer a shorter time-to-exit and successful startups with more than €2M revenues, strong management teams and fast growth. At the same time, the majority of corporates have adopted an open innovation and corporate venturing strategy and want to do business with startups, too. The result are different investment strategies and portfolios that startups should know before pitching. Let’s co-invest and build smart green unicorns made in Europe.
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- 25
- July
2011
Alexander von Frankenberg introduces High-Tech Gründerfonds, Germany’s leading Seed VC
Alexander von Frankenberg, Managing Director of the German seed VC High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF), presents the fund at ECO11 and shares his lessons learned during 5 years of seed funding the German High-tech startup ecosystem. HTGF makes every 2nd seed deal in Germany and currently has 18 portfolio firms in the Cleantech industry. At ECO11, 6 HTGF Cleantech portfolio companies were on stage: Entelios, Subitec, ZIM Plant Technology, Next Kraftwerke, Ecointense and Wesustain.
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