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, food and circular economy to create impact as well as environmental, financial and strategic returns for their fund investors (LPs). In the VC food chain, early stage investors prefer to invest, at lower valuations and higher risk, in the Seed, Series A and Series B financing rounds of young startups working on product market fit and traction (users, customers, revenues). On the other hand, late stage VCs like shorter holding periods and time-to-exit and, consequently, advanced startups with more than €5M revenues, experienced management teams and fast growth. The existence of KPIs, ideally going up over time, makes the life of every investor easier. Facing climate change, technology revolution and global competition, the majority of corporates have adopted corporate venturing and open innovation strategies in order to invest in and do business with startups. The result are different investment strategies and sometimes competing portfolios that startups should know before pitching. Let’s co-invest and meet at Ecosummit Berlin 4-5 June 2024.
Read moreJohan Reynaert presents the European Investment Fund and shares their LP lessons learned
Ecosummit TV: Johan Reynaert presents the European Investment Fund (EIF) and shares their LP lessons learned at ECO14 London. EIF is the biggest fund investor in Europe and a major LP in 16 sustainability VC funds such as Munich Venture Partners, Environmental Technologies Fund, Demeter, Capricorn, VNT Management, Aster Capital, Emertec, WHEB and Icos Capital. According to Johan, sustainability as an asset subclass within venture capital is maturing. GPs and LPs have learned from the past and nowadays focus on capital efficiency, value creation and cooperation with corporates in their startup portfolio. A new trend – that we just discussed with Johan’s colleague Patric Gresko at the Cleantech Forum in Florence – is the interaction of impact investors and smart green VCs. The deep integration of impact investing into the investment strategy and portfolio management enables VCs and startups to tap into a lot of new capital from family offices and other impact investors.
Read morePascal Mauberger pitches the hydrogen storage startup McPhy Energy from France
Ecosummit TV: CEO Pascal Mauberger pitches the French hydrogen storage startup at ECO12 Berlin. Founded in 2008, MyPhy Energy raised €15.2M in 2 rounds from Emertec, Sofinnova Partners and Gimv. They are now 35 people and want to grow to over 100 in a few years. McPhy’s technology is able to store large amounts of hydrogen at low pressure and enables onsite production and storage of hydrogen. If you take renewable energy as a source, you can create green hydrogen using an electrolyser from one of McPhy’s partners. McPhy Energy is on a promising growth path and if you need large-scale hydrogen storage, please get in touch with Pascal.
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