What 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 moreHolger Rupp presents the green consumer marketing startup Get Neutral
Ecosummit TV: If your product isn’t totally green, i.e. its product carbon footprint is larger than zero, then your customers can still go green by neutralising it. Get Neutral has got a suitable green consumer marketing solution for this problem. According to the CEO Holger Rupp, the startup combines sustainability, marketing, mobile technologies and social networks.
Read moreRolf Stein pitches waste to energy startup Advanced Plasma Power
Ecosummit TV: Waste is a resource. Rolf Stein pitches Advanced Plasma Power (APP) at Ecosummit Berlin 2012. The UK-based startup has an efficient gas plasma technology to convert waste to energy. APP was founded in 2005 as a spin-off from the British engineering company Tetronics. The outcomes of APP’s Gasplasma process are syngas (synthetic gas), which is rich in Hydrogen, and Plasmarok, a solid material which can be used for multiple applications, e.g. as building material.
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 moreManfred Heil pitches WeSustain which helps companies optimise their sustainability performance
Ecosummit TV: Manfred Heil, Co-Founder and CEO of WeSustain, pitches the German Green IT startup at Ecosummit Berlin 2012. WeSustain provides a web-based software platform that supports the internal and external processes of sustainability management. WeSustain’s software helps companies measure, improve and communicate their sustainability performance.
Read moreSteven Fawkes of Matrix knows how to make energy efficiency work at scale
Ecosummit TV: Steven Fawkes, Partner at Matrix Group in the UK, is a real expert in energy efficiency and presents his insight into the most promising business models and investment opportunities. In fact, mankind is still extremely energy inefficient. We only use 11% of the primary energy for useful energy such as electricity or heat, the rest is wasted in the process of energy production, conversion and transmission. There are lots of areas where we can increase energy efficiency such as industrial processes, transportation, energy generation and buildings.
Read moreRolf Adam explains Gridonomics – the energy strategy of Cisco
Ecosummit TV: Rolf Adam, Business Development Director Smart Grid and Utilties of Cisco in Europe, shares his thinking about the future of the smart grid and the Internet of things at Ecosummit Berlin 2012. Industry transitions don’t wait for anyone to happen. The energy industry is changing dramatically and utilities have to build a new energy platform to manage this disruptive change. Cisco calls its energy strategy Gridonomics and it’s about the future of the entire energy system combining technology, economics and policy.
Read moreStephan Rieke presents power to gas startup Solarfuel
Ecosummit TV: Stephan Rieke presents Etogas (ex-SolarFuel) which is the global first mover commercialising Power to Gas (P2G) technology. The German startup converts renewable energy to renewable methane (synthetic natural gas) by integrating electrolysis and methanation into one solution. Power to Gas is useful for storing and transporting huge amounts of energy and enables the coupling of the electricity and gas networks to create the smart green super grid. The motivation for developing the new P2G technology is driven by the volatility of wind and solar – the wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine – and the resulting need for huge long-term energy storage. The potential storage capacity of Germany’s gas network could power the country for several months.
Read moreMichael Linse of Kleiner Perkins: humanity is about to hit a wall
Ecosummit TV: Michael Linse, Partner at Kleiner Perkins, talks about his favourite greentech investing framework at Ecosummit Berlin and comes to a scary conclusion: Humanity is about to hit a wall. Cleantech is about the impact of the macro trends on huge industries that will lead to a more sustainable functioning of these industries. The demand side of the equation is changing, in fact, it will go up tremendously. From now until 2030, 3 billion people will join the global middle class. This is significant as the resource consumption pattern increases most dramatically as people move from the scope of poverty to the middle class.
Read moreConrad Ess of Green Technology Staffing talks about attracting smart green talent
Ecosummit TV: If we want to grow the Smart Green Economy, we need more capital and more people. Conrad Ess, CEO of Green Technology Staffing, talks about the art of recruiting new talent for the Smart Green Economy at ECO12 Berlin. Mannheim-based Green Technology Staffing has got 10 employees and currently over 300 cleantech engineering jobs to fill. Conrad’s key message is passion: we need to promote our companies and our jobs with more passion to attract new talent.
Read moreJoerg Fabri of Allocate recommends a holistic business strategy for the energy turnaround
Ecosummit TV: Joerg Fabri, Managing Partner of the consulting firm allocate, talks about a holistic business strategy for the utilities to manage the energy turnaround (Energiewende). To implement the transformation to the clean energy system companies need to reallocate their 4 key corporate resources: capacities, capital, people and energy and materials. There is a new paradigm driven by energy efficiency which means that the former business model of megawatt growth will not work anymore. The smart green utility of the future has to become an allocation manager that learns how to better manage the increasing complexity in the supply side and the demand side.
Read moreTom Schulz presents how Entelios brings demand response to the market
Ecosummit TV: Tom Schulz, Co-Founder and COO of Entelios, pitches the German demand response management startup at ECO12 Berlin. According to the Smart Energy Demand Coalition, intelligent cooperation between consumption, transmission, distribution and generation acting as equal partners in the electricity market is at the heart of the smart grid. Entelios sits between the demand side and the supply side and balances both by aggregating and shifting electricity demand away from peak hours, or rather peak minutes.
Read moreGorka Espiau pitches Hiriko – the first foldable electric city car designed for car sharing
Ecosummit TV: Gorka Espiau, Head of International Programmes at Hiriko, pitches the Spanish EV startup at ECO12 Berlin. Hiriko aims at reinventing sustainable social mobility in smart green cities by building a foldable electric vehicle optimised for car sharing that was originally invented at the MIT Media Lab. The networked city car shall only be offered in car sharing fleets which is a pretty disruptive distribution strategy. The first prototype is available and Hiriko is looking for investors who want to accelerate their vision of sustainable urban mobility.
Read moreHans Streng shares the emobility strategy of ABB
Ecosummit TV: Hans Streng, SVP and General Manager of EV Charging Infrastructure at ABB, sold Epyon, which was incubated by Yes!Delft, to ABB and summarises his startup experience: “The true nature of a cleantech startup is how you manage continuous fluctuations and disruptions. Business changes on a day-to-day basis. The closer you get to the Internet domain, the faster the changes come. The closer you move to the CAPEX domain, the bigger the changes are.” At ECO12 Berlin, Hans presents ABB’s emobility strategy and talks about working with a small startup team inside a big corporate.
Read moreHansjoerg Sage pitches the cleantech VC Gimv
Ecosummit TV: Hansjoerg Sage is a Partner at Gimv and pitches the cleantech VC from Belgium at ECO12 Berlin. Gimv is around for 30 years and has €1.8B under management of which 30% is venture capital. Hansjoerg points out that cleantech investing is about solving very big problems and is driven by fundamental trends such as climate change, energy supply security, urbanisation, scarcity of resources and environmental concerns that will be a top human priority for the next couple of decades. However, cleantech investments have a particular risk return profile that needs to be managed.
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.
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