Alexander Zosel gives an update on the development of their electric Volocopter VC200
Ecosummit TV: Alexander Zosel gives an update on the development of their electric Volocopter VC200 at ECO13 London. E-volo was founded in 2011, was funded by the founders with €450K and raised €1.2M in an amazing crowdfunding round on Seedmatch in November 2013. Moreover, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy granted €2M to contribute to the multi-company project development budget. The first unmanned test flight of the 2-seater VC200 was carried out on 17 November 2013 in Karlsruhe. Currently, E-volo works on the temporary certification from the German aviation authority for their ultralight aircraft (maximum takeoff weight of 450 kg) to start manned test flights. Initially targeting the aerial sports market E-volo has the vision to become a global market leader for urban aviation in the next 10 years. Risk-friendly VCs that love high-tech made in Germany and electric aviation should get in touch with Alex. Full disclosure: Ecosummit is one of E-volo’s crowd investors.
Read moreRune Wendelbo pitches Graphene Batteries from Norway
Ecosummit TV: Graphene is a very promising material that won the Nobel prize in 2010. CTO Rune Wendelbo pitches Graphene Batteries from Norway at ECO13 London. The Oslo-based startup targets the market for batteries in transportation that is forecasted to be $21B in 2020 and develops the active material on the cathode, a key component that represents 25% of the value of the battery. Rune and his team claim that their Graphene-LFP (Lithium Iron Phosphate) composite for the cathode promises increased energy density, lifetime, safety as well as non-toxic production. On a lab scale Graphene Batteries achieved proof of concept but they still need to demonstrate that their manufacturing process is scalable. To establish the pilot production Rune wants to raise $2.2M and thinks that an exit to a chemical corporate with a strong position in the battery business could happen within 3 years.
Read moreEugen Mayer pitches Power Plus Communications
Ecosummit TV: Eugen Mayer pitches Power Plus Communications (PPC) at ECO13 London. The Mannheim-based late stage startup provides broadband powerline (BPL) communication systems in electricity networks and is very active in the smart grid and smart meter rollouts in Germany and UK, their 2 most important markets. Applications such as smart street lighting could communicate over PPC’s powerline technology, too. PPC is a fabless startup with 50 employees that is backed by Climate Change Capital, British Gas and Siemens Venture Capital. Power Plus Communications seems to be well positioned to benefit from the growing smart grid market and we are curious to see who will eventually buy this company.
Read moreFelix Krause pitches Milk the Sun
Ecosummit TV: Felix Krause pitches Milk the Sun at ECO13 London. Since their launch at ECO12 Berlin the German startup made a lot of progress in a very short period of time. Milk the Sun rolled out globally their online marketplace for PV systems that matches old investors (sellers) and new investors (buyers) of existing or planned PV assets by creating a so-called secondary market. More than 1 GW in PV projects looking for new investors are listed on the web-based platform. This brings liquidity to a large but intransparent market where feed-in-tariffs and investments are valid for 20 years. In January 2014, Milk the Sun raised a seed round from Gründerfonds Münsterland (managed by Ecapital) and co-investor Howaldt Energies. As Milk the Sun is cash-flow positive since 2013 we expect a lot more interest from European cleantech VCs in their next round.
Read moreJames Johnston pitches Open Utility
Ecosummit TV: James Johnston pitches Open Utility at ECO13 London. The London-based smart green startup was accelerated by Bethnal Green Ventures in 2013 and recently entered Open Data Institute‘s startup programme. Open Utility creates an online marketplace for buying and selling distributed renewable energy. The idea is that energy consumers can buy electricity directly from local energy producers. However, wholesale energy markets were never designed for millions of independent producers. As a first step, Open Utility launched their website to help electricity producers sell their export power by getting quotes for a PPA (Power Purchase Agreement) from utilities. We believe that Open Utility’s vision of a peer-2-peer energy marketplace makes a lot of sense and recommend that you put the startup on your watchlist, too.
Read moreRolf Adam of Cisco talks about new business models for public lighting by making it intelligent
Ecosummit TV: Smart green cities need intelligent lighting. At ECO13 London, Rolf Adam of Cisco talks about new business models for public lighting by making it intelligent. IP-based lighting infrastructure reduces OPEX by remotely managing and metering a large network of street lamps. When cities and utilities plan to upgrade public lighting to energy-efficient LEDs, they should also think about new business models that are enabled by the internet, sensors and smart algorithms. For example, the Dutch startup Tvilight implemented the brilliant idea of light-on-demand with the help of sensors that detect nearby users. If there aren’t any people or cars present, the street lights are dimmed and energy is saved. The street lights of the 21st century may be used for wireless internet access, location-based advertising, traffic control, street parking, measuring air quality and, last but not least, charging electric vehicles as promoted by Berlin-based Ubitricity. The more services you want to integrate, the more service providers you have to bring together to make money with smart lighting.
Read moreSusana Quintana-Plaza presents the co-investment strategy of EON
Ecosummit TV: Susana Quintana-Plaza presents the co-investment strategy of EON at ECO13 London. Since 2013 the German utility has been very active as a corporate co-investor in the US and Europe having made 9 direct investments including Opower, Sungevity, Bloom Energy, Orcan Energy (ECO14 Award Bronze) and, most recently, Berlin-based heating system online retailer Thermondo. EON also made 1 fund investment into the American VC Westly Group to quickly learn the trade. With 35 million customers and revenues of €122.5B in 2013, EON co-invests with the aim of rolling out the startups’ products to their customer base to help generate new revenues. This means that startups should have a competitive product and revenues to get EON excited about a participation. The next opportunity to pitch to Susana and her team is ECO14 London on 7-8 October.
Read moreChristian Deilmann pitches Tado that recently raised €10M for global expansion
Ecosummit TV: Christian Deilmann pitches Tado at ECO13 London. Since then the Munich-based smart heating startup launched in the UK, developed and kickstarted a smart cooling app – Christian’s original idea – and raised €10M from Target Partners, Shortcut Ventures and other unnamed investors to accelerate their growth and global expansion. Tado is Nest‘s best positioned competitor in Europe. In the last 3 years the team of 40 employees developed a scalable Internet of Things platform that supports 5.000 different types of heating systems and a growing number of air conditioning systems. In the future, Tado will connect other appliances in the smart home, too. In our opinion, a smart home rather needs only one open gateway that communicates with all online devices in the household. The question is who enters and controls the smart home first. It may well be Tado rather than Nest.
Read moreRichard van de Vrie pitches Luxexcel and its 3D optics printing technology
Ecosummit TV: Richard van de Vrie pitches Luxexcel at ECO13 London. The resource efficient Dutch startup invented a new 3D printing technology for optics and lenses that reduces the development time and cost of new LED lights and other optical products. Now it is possible to develop new luminaires in days rather than months, a significant cost reduction potential for LED manufacturers that typically develop 75 products per year. Luxexcel is backed by Chrysalix SET in Amsterdam and Munich Venture Partners, patented its printoptical technology and has got revenues. It will be exciting to watch this company grow and take its limitless 3D printing technology to new markets and industries.
Read moreThe real problem of energy efficiency is that it is uncool
Ecosummit TV: Steven Fawkes lectures on energy efficiency in the built environment at ECO13 London. According to IEA‘s efficient world scenario, energy efficiency would add $35 trillion to the global GDP by 2035 if it was implemented well. How do we achieve the full potential of energy efficiency? As for buildings, we need more accurate building performance models, advanced materials such as smart windows and integrated design that merges green architecture with smart technologies for lighting, heating, cooling and ventilation. As energy efficiency projects often are rather small, they should be aggregated into multi-site programmes. At the same time, investor confidence has to be fostered to drive more capital into energy efficiency. Steven currently works on bringing the Investor Confidence Project to Europe to make large energy efficiency projects ready for investors with the help of standardisation and quality assurance. However, the real problem of energy efficiency is that is uncool. We need more stuff like Nest and Philips Hue. Hey, startups, let’s invent new products to make energy efficiency cool, sexy and successful.
Read morePeter 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 moreBenjamin Kott pitches EnergyDeck
Ecosummit TV: Benjamin Kott, who used to manage green operations for Google in Europe, pitches EnergyDeck at ECO13 London. 40% of total energy is consumed by buildings and up to 30% of consumption is typically wasted. Moreover, 80% of today’s buildings will exist in 2050. This translates into £8B annual savings potential in the UK alone from increasing commercial building efficiency by 20%. EnergyDeck is an online platform for community-based resource tracking and building performance benchmarking and it includes a best practice database. Benjamin’s ultimate vision is a supplier marketplace that aggregates the best solutions in the market for optimising building efficiency. EnergyDeck is a young startup based in London that is backed by angels and public grants. Now EnergyDeck is fundraising again and invites investors who love software, buildings and energy efficiency and are able to add value on top of providing capital.
Read morePhilipp Bouteiller presents the urban tech republic Berlin TXL
Ecosummit TV: The existing airport Tegel keeps on running and the opening date and budget of the new airport remain a big mystery. However, Philipp and his team already have a plan for the future use of Berlin TXL. The urban tech republic shall be a centre for urban technologies and the companies making them. As cities are so important when it comes to consuming resources and creating wealth, we all agree that citizens should work hard on the smart green city transition. Inventing and producing new urban solutions within the city boundary is a beautiful idea and makes a lot of sense. Philipp has a deep passion for attracting smart green industries to Berlin and will be happy to talk to small and big companies about relocating. The conversion of an old airport into a new urban tech republic will take one generation. We just hope that it will start soon.
Read morePhilipp Rode of LSE talks about smart green cities
Ecosummit TV: According to Philipp Rode, Executive Director at LSE Cities, cities are leading the next economy as we already surpassed 50% urbanisation. Having surveyed 90 cities, Philipp identifies the key sectors driving cities’ economic growth as being green transport, renewable energy, green building retrofits, new green buildings, energy distribution and green goods and services. Cities can learn from each other because they are very different. As for energy, the city of Munich owns 100% of the local utility Stadtwerke München and, as a result, is able to set the goal of 100% renewables in 2025 and manage the transition of local energy generation and distribution following a long-term strategy. It also turns out that cities are willing to collaborate and try out new ideas to facilitate the smart green transition. That sounds like an open invitation for startups to participate in the urban transformation.
Read moreLaurits Bach Sorensen pitches Microshade
Ecosummit TV: Laurits Bach Sorensen pitches Microshade at ECO13 London. Microshade’s solar shading technology is integrated into glass facades and roof structures and significantly reduces the energy used for cooling and ventilation. Thus it reduces the OPEX of the building and enables an attractive ROI. The Danish startup was founded in 2003, has got 10 employees, is backed by Chrysalix SET and recently did a strategy pivot by focusing on the retrofit market as well as large commercial buildings with a lot of glazing surfaces. Now Laurits wants to raise $2.5M to accelerate growth and prove the superior economics of their solar shading solution on a large scale.
Read moreDetlef Pohl pitches Siemens Venture Capital
Ecosummit TV: Detlef Pohl pitches Siemens Venture Capital at ECO13 London. The cities of the future have to be sustainable, competitive and livable to attract the best companies and citizens. Therefore, cities need intelligent infrastructure that integrates buildings, mobility, water supply, waste management and security while minimising the carbon footprint. Siemens not only provides a myriad of new technologies for smart green cities but also venture capital and project financing for the development and deployment of such technologies. The ability to offer customised financing solutions drives the sales of smart green innovation. It’s useful to be a corporate and have a big balance sheet. As for venture capital, Siemens is an investor in the EV charging network Chargepoint that recently raised $22.6M and operates over 17.000 charging stations.
Read moreTrued Holmquist pitches ATC Industrial Group from Sweden
Ecosummit TV: Trued Holmquist pitches ATC Industrial Group from Sweden at ECO13 London. ATC develops a self-learning home energy management system called Scypho. Targeting single family houses the system uses neural network technology to provide comfort on demand to the end users. Scypho controls the heating and cooling system of the building using a gateway, sensors and smartphones as user interface and enables energy cost savings of up to 30%. Up to now ATC has been active in Sweden and wants to raise €2.5M to grow faster and enter new international markets. In the future, Scypho will be extended to serve as a smart home platform that integrates more services such as lighting control or intelligent demand response. As the smart home marketplace is quite crowded already, it will be interesting to watch which startups outrun the competition.
Read moreMartin Mohr pitches Ecoduna from Austria
Ecosummit TV: Martin Mohr pitches Ecoduna at ECO13 London. Founded in 2009, the Austrian startup develops algae production systems and is one of the global technology leaders. Ecoduna already makes money in the food supplement market with high-value Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids. Algae production will be price competitive in the food market in 2 years, the plastics market in 4-5 years and the energy market in 8-12 years. Ecoduna’s vertical photobioreactors are supposed to be better than the competition as they work in a continuous, software-controlled process with neither too much nor too little light. In 2013, Ecoduna opened their own algae production plant in Austria. A large number of partners is in the pipeline to install more industrial production capacity. Get in touch with Martin if you also believe in the long-term business opportunity of smart algae production and commercialisation.
Read moreChristina di Sano pitches Smart Hydro Power
Ecosummit TV: Christina di Sano pitches Smart Hydro Power at ECO13 London. Founded in 2010, Smart Hydro Power develops a kinetic hydro power turbine that uses the movement of rivers to produce clean energy. The hydro power plants are targeted at offgrid communities that up to now had to rely on costly and dirty diesel generators. Their first product is a 5 KW turbine with built-in debris protection that costs €12.5K. Smart Hydro Power is backed by Ecapital and High-tech Gründerfonds and won the Ecosummit Award 2012 Gold medal. The German startup is currently fundraising and interested in talking to a new lead investor.
Read moreBloomberg’s Michael Wilshire analyses clean energy investment activity and trends
Ecosummit TV: Michael Wilshire, Director of Analysis at Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), talks about clean energy investment activity and trends at ECO13 London. BNEF provides independent market intelligence to investors and researches into the massive clean energy industry with a focus on policy, technology, economics, finance and supply chains. Clean energy attracted $281B of new investments in 2012 of which a small but important portion is VC and PE driving innovation.
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