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- April
2015
Smart green accelerator panel featuring Startupbootcamp, Climate-KIC, Rockstart and Swedish Energy Agency
Ecosummit TV: Accelerating smart green startups should be the key motivation for everybody working with startups on a day-to-day basis, not only accelerators, but also angels, VCs, corporates and service providers. At ECO14 Berlin, we discuss the art of faster startup development with Alex Farcet (Startupbootcamp), Franka Birke (Climate-KIC), Yme Bosma (Rockstart) and Bigge Lidgren (ex-Swedish Energy Agency, now Cleantech Invest). A typical accelerator programme lasts 90 to 180 days with intensive mentoring on product development, customer development, fundraising and team building. Private accelerators like Startupbootcamp and Rockstart follow the business model of investing €20K for 8% of equity at a rather low valuation. Then they work hard to create value, increase the startup’s valuation and attract follow-on investments. Public accelerators like Climate-KIC and Swedish Energy Agency usually do not take equity and rather provide grants and soft loans. A key challenge for all accelerators is to attract coachable founders that are, at the same time, very talented and skilled at building successful startups. Only then do the accelerators get returns on their investments.
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- March
2015
Ines Bergmann pitches corporate venture capital provided by E.ON
Ecosummit TV: We just met Ines Bergmann at the Cleantech Forum in San Francisco where she is spending 6 months scouting new innovation that can be brought to Europe. At ECO14 Berlin, Ines pitches the benefits of corporate venture capital provided by E.ON. The German utility is one of the most active corporate co-investors in smart energy startups. E.ON’s added value is rolling out the products of their portfolio companies to their 35 million customers, increasing startup revenues one market after the other. This turns out to be a very useful market entry strategy especially for US startups planning to enter Europe. E.ON’s portfolio includes Orcan Energy (ECO14 Award Bronze), Thermondo, Autogrid, Firstfuel, Sungevity, Opower and Bloom Energy. While many utilities are also working on becoming technology companies, it remains to be seen when E.ON’s CVC activities will result in the first acquisitions.
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- March
2015
Jan Marckhoff pitches BEN Energy
Ecosummit TV: Jan Marckhoff pitches BEN Energy at ECO14 Berlin. The smart green startup enables customer intelligence and engagement for utilities and competes with Opower and Tendril. Being the market leader in Switzerland, BEN Energy recently entered the German market and already won a large customer and a powerful distribution partner. The founders successfully bootstrapped their spin-off from ETH Zurich to €1M annual revenues and are currently raising their first financing round. Jan will pitch again at ECO15 Berlin to change the way people experience energy.
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- March
2015
Felix Grolman pitches Grundgrün
Ecosummit TV: Felix Grolman pitches Grundgrün at ECO14 Berlin. The Berlin-based startup is building a next generation smart green utility focusing 100% on renewable energy. Grundgrün’s core business is the direct marketing of renewable energy assets that they sell on short-term, long-term and balancing markets as well as directly to households and companies. The key to their success is an integrated IT infrastructure that enables sourcing, trading and distribution of energy as well as innovative energy services such as virtual power plants and production forecasting. Founded in 2011, Grundgrün is a fast-growing late stage startup with a team of 65 employees and backed by the family office Aeris Capital. Grundgrün is currently fundraising to further accelerate growth in Germany and new international markets.
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- March
2015
David Brown pitches Canatu
Ecosummit TV: Kids actually think that everything should be touchable. So the challenge is how to be interactive on any surface. David Brown pitches Canatu at ECO14 Berlin. Canatu develops transparent conductive films used in touchscreens and flexible displays, serving high growth multi-billion dollar markets. Canatu’s goal is to replace Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) that is used in today’s touchscreens. Canatu invented the NanoBud, a (semi-)conductive, flexible nanomaterial that can be deposited on any substrate in a roll-to-roll direct dry printing process. Canatu was spun-off from the NanoMaterials Group at Helsinki University of Technology and has got 29 employees. The Finnish startup currently looks for €15M to scale the technology and business.
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- March
2015
Jay Marathe of Cartagena Capital takes startups from fundraising to successful exits
Ecosummit TV: Startups and VCs alike share the need for more and better exits. While we believe that Pan-European co-investing is an important success factor for achieving good exits, we acknowledge that exits are challenging and often are facilitated by corporate finance advisors representing the sell or buy side. In this context, Jay Marathe of Cartagena Capital talks about taking startups from fundraising to successful exits at ECO14 Berlin. The timing of the exit is key. Startups should constantly listen to the market for strong exit signals: competitors get acquired, customers place huge orders or buyers have lots of cash and start calling. At the same time, it makes sense to continue fundraising and creating value until you reach key valuation milestones and have a nice selection of LOIs from multiple buyers on the table. A recent exit is the $100M acquisition of AlertMe by British Gas, their biggest customer and one of their VCs. This transaction also enabled the second exit of SET Ventures.
Read more- 15
- February
2015
Alexandre Askmo pitches Exeger
Ecosummit TV: Alexandre Askmo pitches Exeger at ECO14 Berlin. Exeger is the most-advanced developer of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSC) that have been invented by Professor Michael Grätzel in 1991. The Stockholm-based startup was founded in 2009, raised more than $30M and is supported by the Swedish Energy Agency. In 2014, Exeger inaugurated the world’s largest DSC factory that uses screen printing in the city centre of Stockholm. Dye-sensitzed solar cells are less sensitive to light angle and provide stable efficiency in all light and temperature conditions. As DSCs can be designed in any colour and printed on any shape a lot of applications are possible including consumer electronics, wearable devices and building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV). Exeger works on commercial prototyping this year and plans its commercial launch in 2016 for which they are fundraising another $10-20M.
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- February
2015
Nils Aldag pitches Sunfire
Ecosummit TV: Nils Aldag pitches Sunfire at ECO14 Berlin. The Dresden-based late stage startup makes very efficient solid oxide electrolysers and fuel cells using the same technology platform. Last year Sunfire won Ecosummit Award 2014 Silver and entered Cleantech Group’s 2014 Global Cleantech 100. Sunfire has got 80 employees and is backed by Electranova Capital, Total Energy Ventures, Bilfinger Venture Capital and KfW. Their impressive list of customers includes ThyssenKrupp and Vaillant. Upon request Nils will share more customers that prove Sunfire’s enormous market traction that may lead to €10M revenues in 2015. Nils currently raises their next financing round and welcomes new strategic and financial investors that believe in Sunfire’s growth potential in the global hydrogen market.
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- February
2015
Soren Mouritsen pitches ROMO Wind
Ecosummit TV: There are more than 350.000 wind turbines operating and there is still a lot to be done to optimise performance by harmonising the wind direction and turbine orientation in realtime. At ECO14 Berlin, Soren Mouritsen pitches ROMO Wind and explains how the iSpin technology is able to continuously measure wind direction and speed in front of the rotor, rather than behind, and correct the yaw misalignment of the turbine accordingly. This increases wind farm production by 2 percent creating a target market of 1 billion Euros. The Swiss startup has got 23 employees and is backed by Yellow&Blue, ABB Technology Ventures, b-to-v and the business angel Christian Reitberger. Existing customers include Vattenfall and EDP Renewables. ROMO Wind is currently fundraising again and interested in talking to new investors.
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- January
2015
Alexander van Os pitches Yellow&Blue
Ecosummit TV: Smart green energy is the only way to go. The energy market is changing rapidly thanks to technological and business model innovation coming from all directions. This creates a lot of investment opportunities for smart green VCs such as Yellow&Blue. Funded with €40M by the Dutch utility Nuon (Vattenfall Group), the Utrecht-based VC looks for capital efficient startups that make the energy value chain cleaner and more flexible with a focus on smart grid and energy efficiency. Alexander van Os and his partners are famous for their successful exit of Entelios to Enernoc in February 2014. At ECO14 Berlin, Yellow&Blue showcased their portfolio company ROMO Wind that optimises the performance of wind turbines and is currently fundraising again.
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- January
2015
Yüksel Sirmasac pitches Rockethome
Ecosummit TV: Smart energy and smart home, empowered by the Internet of Things (IoT), are hot markets that continue to attract a growing number of startups. One of the established German smart home enablers with a strong focus on usability is Rockethome that was founded in 2010 in Cologne. At ECO14 Berlin, Yüksel Sirmasac gives a company update and pitches Rockethome. The startup provides a software platform for smart home services that connects all kinds of devices and applications. The Rockethome solution is already licensed to 40 telcos and city utilities in 6 countries. Rockethome has got 35 employees, doubles revenues every year and is backed by Born2grow, a seed fund managed by Zukunftsfonds Heilbronn, and KfW. Now Yüksel is interested in talking to new financial and strategic investors that can help grow the business.
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- January
2015
Holger Ulland pitches O-Flexx
Ecosummit TV: Waste heat is a very big but rarely used energy resource. Being back at Ecosummit, Holger Ulland pitches O-Flexx at ECO14 Berlin. The smart green startup develops and manufactures in their Duisburg-based 1 MW factory thermoelectric generators that convert heat to electricity. The thermoelectric generators can be used in the steel, automotive and locomotive industries as well as for heating systems and autonomous sensors. The first customers are SMS Siemag (steel plants) and Bombardier (diesel locomotives). O-Flexx is backed by Emerald Technology Ventures and NRW Bank whom they met at ECO12 Berlin. O-Flexx has got a very strong IP portfolio, first revenues and is currently fundraising to accelerate its growth.
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- January
2015
Silvan Rath pitches ParkTAG
Ecosummit TV: Parking is big: every drive starts and ends in a parking space. Moreover, cars are parked 95% of the day and 30% of urban traffic is caused by drivers looking for parking. Having developed a mobile solution to the parking problem, Silvan Rath pitches ParkTAG at ECO14 Berlin. ParkTAG operates a social parking community that enables car drivers to find available parking places with their smartphones. The ParkTAG app uses the built-in sensors of the device to track user movement and learns automatically when the user is parking a car or vacating a parking space and driving away. The Berlin-based early stage startup was founded in 2014 and is backed by High-Tech Gründerfonds, Germany’s leading seed investor. ParkTAG’s capital efficient business model is to license its smart parking technology to partners that market it to their customers.
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- January
2015
Paul Leibold pitches Adaptive City Mobility and its City Etaxi
Ecosummit TV: Paul Leibold pitches Adaptive City Mobility and its City Etaxi at ECO14 Berlin. The capital efficient strategy for developing a new electric vehicle is a value web of strong partners that contribute technology, people and capital to co-develop a new car and co-create a new market. That’s exactly what Paul did when he brought together Vispiron, Roding, BMZ, Heinzmann and Fraunhofer ESK in 2012 to work on his dream of an electric taxi optimised for smart green cities. The partners jointly invested €10M and received funding from the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. The City Etaxi is a lightweight 3 seater that supports battery swapping and reaches 80 km/h. Now Paul looks for investors and ambitious city managers that want to support pilot projects with connected etaxi fleets.
Read more- 15
- December
2014
WeSustain raises €4M Series B from VNT Management, HTGF, KfW and MBG
Ecosummit TV: Every company in every industry has to go green and make and sell sustainable products. At the same time, smart green investors take sustainability reports very seriously when making investment decisions. In September 2014, the EU Commission issued their long-awaited directive for mandatory sustainability reports for companies with more than 500 employees that has to be translated into national law within 2 years. Now Enterprise Sustainability Management (ESM) software providers like WeSustain are en vogue. CEO Manfred Heil expects the market to triple within the next 4 years. Customer references like Daimler, Commerzbank and Allianz as well as reseller Telekom will help the well positioned German startup and its team of 20 employees to grow even faster than the market.
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- December
2014
George Hanna pitches Qinous
Ecosummit TV: George Hanna pitches Qinous at ECO14 Berlin. Qinous develops smart energy storage and management systems for offgrid and ongrid applications starting at 30 KW and going up to the MW scale by combining a large number of battery systems. Qinous acts as a solution provider that makes the system in Berlin and then ships it to the customer ready for installation. Being independent of the underlying battery technology, there is a strong focus on thorough battery testing as part of the design and production process. Founded in Q4 2013, the smart green startup raised their seed round from Investitionsbank Berlin in Q1 2014 and sold the first system in Q2 2014. That’s what we call fast execution. Next year, Qinous plans to raise their Series A from strategic investors and is very interested in getting to know the best smart green VCs in Europe.
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- December
2014
Stephan Schulze and Konstantin Hanssen present Investitionsbank Berlin
Ecosummit TV: According to Stephan Schulze of IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft, Berlin is a smart green business location for startups that has changed tremendously during the last 25 years. In fact, we count more than 30 fundable smart green startups in Berlin of which 5 are backed by IBB: Ubitricity, Thermondo, Geo-en, ECF Farmsystems and Qinous. IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft was founded in 1997 as a 100% subsidiary of Investitionsbank Berlin, the business development bank of Berlin. Next to venture capital, IBB provides a lot of support to SMEs including grants, public loans, bank credits, guarantees and mezzanine capital. IBB is a well-connected local business partner that always keeps their door open for ambitious founders based in Berlin or planning to relocate.
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- December
2014
Sonnenbatterie raises €7.5M Series B from Munich Venture Partners, Chrysalix SET and Ecapital
Sonnenbatterie raises €7.5M in their Series B financing round from the co-investors Munich Venture Partners, Chrysalix SET and Ecapital. The Bavarian startup sold over 4.000 smart energy storage systems and is one of the fastest growing smart green startups in Germany. We like Sonnenbatterie since their first pitch at Ecosummit Düsseldorf 2012. In January 2013, Ecapital invested €3M in the Series A. At ECO13 Berlin, Sonnenbatterie won Ecosummit Award 2013 Bronze and Philipp Schröder, now at Tesla, performed a great pitch. Sonnenbatterie also joined our first Ecosummit London 2013. In March 2014, we co-hosted our first Ecosummit Advisor Workshop in the energy village Wildpoldsried. Among our advisors were Martin Kröner (MVP) and Rene Savelsberg (Chrysalix SET) and, as you can see, they went home more impressed than ever before. At ECO14 Berlin, Sonnenbatterie won Ecosummit Award 2014 Gold and Benjamin Schott jumped on stage. At ECO14 London, Christoph Ostermann pitched again after we enjoyed an incredible sponsor dinner at Home House and then got lost in London’s taxi underground. Now it is time to celebrate before doubling annual production and revenues in the years to come. Long live Sonnenbatterie and very big the exit shall be.
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- December
2014
Knut Hechtfischer pitches Ubitricity at Ecosummit Berlin 2014
Ecosummit TV: Although he didn’t leave our sponsor dinner as the first guest the night before, Knut Hechtfischer delivered his best pitch at ECO14 Berlin so far. Ubitricity has got a great story that is acknowledged by an increasing number of VCs and industry experts. This year Ubitricity entered Cleantech Group’s 2014 Global Cleantech 100 – next to 7 more startups that pitched at Ecosummit in the past. Moreover, the Berlin-based smart green startup won EDF Germany as strategic investor and has got a product ready for market. Ubitricity wants to make smart charging affordable by enabling mobile metering in the virtual power grid. They bring together electric mobility and mobile electricity in a very simple, yet powerful way. The key idea is to put the intelligence into the charging cable. This allows for a cost reduction of 90% when installing smart sockets (thin charging stations) in street lights, garages and any other place you can imagine. In 2015, Ubitricity rolls out in Germany and we are curious to see how EV drivers, fleet operators, municipalities and utilities adopt this smart charging service.
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- November
2014
Philipp Schroeder presents Tesla on its way to the most valuable car company in the world
Ecosummit TV: This year Ecosummit partnered with Tesla Motors to provide Model S test drives and first-hand insight into the automotive future invented in California. Following a 100% electric strategy since its foundation in 2003, Tesla forces the big automakers to accelerate their electric transformation, too. In February, Philipp Schroeder joined Tesla from Sonnenbatterie and now manages sales and business development in Germany and Austria. At ECO14 Berlin, Philipp agreed that Tesla is on its way to become the most valuable car company in the world. When we wrote about the super hero of the smart green economy in May 2011, Tesla was valued at $2.6B. Now it has a market cap of $30.6B and expects to deliver 33.000 cars to its customers in 2014. BMW, the German car maker with the strongest electric mobility strategy thanks to the purpose built EVs i3 and i8 and the inhouse carbon fiber production, is valued at $60.3B delivering 2 million cars this year (BMW investor presentation Nov 2014). When Tesla’s Model III, priced at $35.000, starts racing against the BMW 3 series in 2017, we will find out quickly how car drivers really think when making their next purchase decision.
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