- 14
- October
2013
Klaus Dibbern pitches Flinc
Ecosummit TV: Klaus Dibbern pitches Flinc at ECO13 Berlin. The German smart green startup enables dynamic ride sharing and runs a growing social mobility network. Flinc also offers a state-of-the-art ride sharing solution for companies that want to do something good for their employees. Flinc is integrated with Garmin’s Navigon navigation system as well as the ConnectedDrive services in the new BMW i3. With a focus on regional transportation, the system manages over half a million ride offers per month. Flinc currently raises a new financing round and you can meet co-founder Benjamin Kirschner at ECO13 London to talk about cooperation and the future of sustainable social mobility.
Read more- 13
- 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.
Read more- 11
- 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?
Read more- 10
- 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.
Read more- 7
- October
2013
Fabienne Herlaut pitches Ecomobilité Ventures
Ecosummit TV: Fabienne Herlaut pitches Ecomobilité Ventures at ECO13 Berlin. The Paris-based multi-corporate VC is focused on investing in sustainable mobility startups in Europe. Ecomobilité Ventures is financed by French national railway operator SNCF, mobile telephone operator Orange and energy company Total. The €25M fund is invested in 3 startups: Move About, EZ‐Wheel (ECO13 London) and Ouicar. At the moment, Fabienne works on new investments into promising startups as well as expanding the financial muscle of Ecomobilité Ventures with the help of more corporate limited partners. We are proud to have Fabienne among our Ecosummit Advisors and look forward to meeting her again at ECO13 London next week.
Read more- 1
- October
2013
Ecosummit London 2013 happens on 15-16 October at the Crystal
This is our preview of Ecosummit London 2013, our 6th cleantech conference that we hold for the first time in London. The agenda is online and presents 58 speakers including 31 startups and 15 sponsors. The growing list of participants features a promising startup and VC density. 2 embedded Ecosummit TV videos show my introduction of ECO13 London and my opening of ECO13 Berlin. With 2 weeks to go, there is plenty of time to get your ticket and join us at the Crystal, the perfect location for our smart green family reunion. A unique experience for the participants will be the cable car pitch overviewing The Thames and Canary Wharf. Finally, it is our pleasure to share the dates of our next 4 events in Berlin and London in 2014 and 2015 for which we look for long-term sponsors and partners.
Read more- 1
- 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.
Read more- 1
- 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.
Read more- 30
- August
2013
Aaron Best and Franka Birke present the European startup accelerator Climate-KIC
Ecosummit TV: At Ecosummit Berlin 2013, Aaron Best and Franka Birke present Climate-KIC, the European initiative to foster cleantech entrepreneurship and education. Climate-KIC runs a startup accelerator that provides up to €95K, office space and coaching to young startups in Germany, UK, France, Switzerland and the Netherlands. They also organise master classes with famous startup gurus such as Steve Blank or Alexander Osterwalder. During the Climate-KIC session, Ingo Potthof (UnternehmerTUM Fund) interviewed Alexander Zosel (E-volo), Niels Beisinghoff (Bettertaxi), Philipp Pausder (Futurewatt), Philipp von Seherr-Thoss (Milk the Sun) and Martin Burkhardt (Boxtango). If you are an early stage startup or support startups with capital or industry expertise, you should definitely join the Climate-KIC network.
Read more- 27
- August
2013
Leopold von Bismarck pitches Tado from Munich
Ecosummit TV: Leopold von Bismarck pitches Tado at ECO13 Berlin. The Munich-based startup provides a smart green heating management service that helps consumers save up to €300 per year. At €99 annual subscription fee, this is a fair deal that makes economic and ecological sense. Customers connect a small hardware box to their central heating system and control it with a smartphone app. Backed by Target Partners and Shortcut Ventures, Tado is one of the most promising cleantech startups in Germany. At the same time, they are a very good case study to learn how cleantech and Internet grow together by making things smart and connecting them to their users. Thus your heating system goes green by operating less, only when it is really needed. The expert jury of the Ecosummit Award 2013 also thought that Tado is on a roll and sent them home with a silver medal and some useful prize money.
Read more- 27
- August
2013
Bernard Scherrer fosters open innovation at EDF and invites cleantech startups to work together
Ecosummit TV: Bernard Scherrer presents the open innovation strategy of EDF at ECO13 Berlin. The French utility has got 38 million customers and annual revenues of €65B. EDF embraces open innovation because they want to work with cleantech startups that have valuable solutions for their large customer base. For example, the Berlin-based EV charging startup Ubitricity is currently being tested in EDF’s R&D labs. Bernard’s open innovation team wants to foster entrepreneurship and promote lean startup principles inside EDF. In some cases, the cooperation may lead to an investment for which the corporate VC Electranova Capital and the French seed fund ATI (Amorçage Technologique Investissement) were created. It is encouraging to see the growing number of corporate VCs and open innovation units that are active in Europe and it is even better to start working with them.
Read more- 21
- August
2013
Konstantin Artemyev pitches Bravo Motors
Ecosummit TV: Konstantin Artemyev pitches Bravo Motors from Russia at ECO13 Berlin. Konstantin is 27 years old, founded and still owns an IT security startup and comes from Astrakhan near the Caspian Sea. In 2011, he founded his second startup Bravo Motors which is very similar to Hiriko as they also develop a foldable electric city vehicle. However, Konstantin and his talented team built the first prototype with just $200K, a fantastic achievement and proof of their engineering genius. Now Bravo Motors wants to raise $4M to further develop the eTrike and start series production. Bravo Motors just won the Skolkovo Startup Village competition as well as the Ecosummit Award 2013 Facebook Silver medal. We believe Bravo Motors is one of the most promising cleantech startups in Russia.
Read more- 19
- August
2013
Oleg Pertsovskiy presents Skolkovo Foundation, the new startup epicentre of the Russian economy
Ecosummit TV: Oleg Pertsovskiy presents Skolkovo Foundation at ECO13 Berlin. Skolkovo is a strategic development initiative backed by the government to diversify Russia’s economy through innovation and entrepreneurship. To kickstart a new startup culture, the Skolkovo ecosystem consists of an innovation centre with 5 clusters including an energy cluster, a university in cooperation with MIT as well as a new smart green city quarter located 20 km in the west of Moscow’s city centre (Kremlin). In particular, Skolkovo supports startups with a 50% co-financing grant of up to $1M to cross the gap from the research lab to the market. The other half should come from angels or VCs. Recently Skolkovo got another $4B commitment from the government to accelerate the development until 2020. Skolkovo is a very important project that contributes to making Russia more independent from finite resources like oil and gas.
Read more- 16
- August
2013
Anna Yukiko Bickenbach interviews happy participants at Ecosummit Berlin 2013
Ecosummit TV: Ecosummit TV moderator Anna Yukiko Bickenbach (Ecotastic) interviews happy participants at Ecosummit Berlin 2013. This Ecosummit TV video features Lillian van Someren Greve (Ecosummit Ambassador), Andreas Spiess (Solarkiosk), Josefine Ahl (Oricane), Fujio Kojima (Pirika), Alexander Lidgren (Swedish Energy Agency), Tarja Teppo (Cleantech Invest) and Jan Michael Hess (Ecosummit). Since our first event in 2010 until our fifth conference this year in Berlin we have managed to build a strong community of cleantech startups, investors and corporates that enjoy honest conversations and productive networking at our events. It feels like a family. We are proud to host the next smart green family reunion in London on 15-16 October 2013 at the Crystal. Come and join us.
Read more- 15
- August
2013
Carsten Schneider of Osborne Clarke presents the German public investment grant for business angels
Ecosummit TV: Carsten Schneider is a Partner of the law firm Osborne Clarke in Cologne, Germany. At ECO13 Berlin, he gives an overview of the new German law called “Investitionszuschuss Wagniskapital” that was launched on 15 May 2013 and is managed by BAFA (Federal Office of Economics and Export Control). The law constitutes a public venture capital subsidy for private investors that get a 20% investment grant for their investments into startups. The target group are business angels (natural persons or their solely owned investment vehicles that are based in the EU). As many angel rounds consist of a syndicate of angels, a single investor may get this grant for investments of maximum €250K per year. Per startup investments of up to €1M per year will be supported. Eligible startups must have their headquarter in the EU, a registered office in Germany, less than 50 employees and maximum €10M revenues. While Carsten believes that this grant will have an impact on shareholder agreements, it is a very good initiative for angels and the startups they support.
Read more- 11
- August
2013
Markus Leuenberger pitches the Dutch cleantech institute ECN
Ecosummit TV: Markus Leuenberger pitches ECN at ECO13 Berlin. The Dutch research institute is based in a beautiful location in the dunes north of Amsterdam. 550 researchers and experts develop new green technologies with a strong focus on renewable energy and energy storage including Power to Gas. Recently, ECN launched a new technical due diligence service for cleantech VCs across Europe. This makes a lot of sense as many cleantech VCs don’t have sufficient inhouse competence in each of the many cross-industry cleantech markets. Moreover, the cleantech institute also helps startups during product development. A small version of Fraunhofer in Germany, ECN looks like they are equally smart and very entrepreneurial. If you need deep cleantech technology expertise, go and talk to ECN.
Read more- 9
- August
2013
Torsten Wipiejewski pitches cleantech VC VNT Management from Finland
Ecosummit TV: Torsten Wipiejewski pitches VNT Management at ECO13 Berlin. The Finnish cleantech VC was founded in 2002 and raised 3 funds with a total of €157M under management. The European Investment Fund is one of the LPs that committed €25M to VNT’s Power Fund III. Their large portfolio of 16 cleantech startups is mainly focused on renewable energy and electrical systems. As all of the partners of VNT have got an industrial and engineering background, they prefer to invest in startups that they deeply understand and can really add value to. If you make cleantech hardware and deal with power electronics, VNT Management is for you. However, they sometimes make an exception, so don’t be shy to send over your investor presentation. Torsten and his partner Harri are very relaxed and look forward to getting to know the best cleantech startups in Europe.
Read more- 9
- August
2013
Smart green lean startup panel with Cleantech Invest, Savosolar, Wellington Partners, Icos Capital and Ben Energy
Ecosummit TV: Tarja Teppo (Cleantech Invest) moderates the smart green lean startup panel at ECO13 Berlin featuring Jari Varjotie (Savosolar), Bart Markus (Wellington Partners), Peter van Gelderen (Icos Capital) and Jan Marckhoff (Ben Energy). Given that most cleantech startups are capital- and time-intensive, we believe that the lean startup philosophy is the right medicine. Lean startup is all about resource efficient product development with fast iterations to achieve product market fit without wasting too much time and money. While lean startup works well for software startups, the question is whether it can also be applied to hardware startups. For the strategy discussion between the startup management and their VCs, lean startup also means to take smart make or buy decisions to maintain focus and, for example, outsource manufacturing or distribution to reduce CAPEX and OPEX. During an inspiring discussion, our panelists share their experience with being lean while being clean.
Read more- 6
- August
2013
Jari Varjotie pitches Savosolar from Finland
Ecosummit TV: Jari Varjotie pitches Savosolar from Finland at ECO13 Berlin. The cleantech startup develops and manufactures very efficient solar thermal absorbers and collectors that are based on patented optical nano coating. In fact, Savosolar claims to be the most efficient solar collector in the field and over 30 customers are a pretty good market proof. Savosolar is backed by Cleantech Invest and currently raises a new round of €4M of which €2M will be public funding. Break-even is planned for 2014 and we believe Savosolar to be an attractive investment opportunity with a nice risk return profile given the advanced development stage of the Finnish startup. Go for it, the sun rises in the north.
Read more- 5
- August
2013
Josefine Ahl pitches Oricane from Sweden
Ecosummit TV: Josefine Ahl pitches Oricane from Sweden at ECO13 Berlin. The smart green startup provides green software for big data applications that saves a lot of hardware and energy. Their product BioCAM is an energy efficient NoSQL database with very low CPU and memory footprint. Oricane is backed by Finnish VC Cleantech Invest. Josefine is so confident of the benefits of Oricane’s software that she proposes a new software licensing model which is not based on CPUs but rather on the service level itself. At ECO13 Berlin, Oricane won Ecosummit Award 2013 Facebook Bronze and, the next day, Josefine demonstrated that she rules the art of startup pitching, too.
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