Energiency raises €4.5M Series A led by Encevo
Ecosummit startups are startups that pitched at least once at Ecosummit. Ecosummit investors are investors that have at least one Ecosummit startup in their current portfolio. Today the Ecosummit startup Energiency announces its €4.5M Series A led by the Ecosummit investor Encevo. At the same time, we get one more assist because CEO Arnaud Legrand first met VC Analyst Quentin Dupraz at Ecosummit Paris on 6 March 2018. The French startup and the Luxembourg utility speak the same language and quickly found out that they not only understand each other but also have similar ideas for developing joint business opportunities in the industrial energy market. As Nicolas Milerioux and his team are on the mission to expand corporate venturing and open innovation, Energiency turned out to be a really good match for Encevo’s strategy and portfolio.
Read moreSET Ventures raises €60M SET Fund II from EIF, Sitra, Shell, Essent, Delta and Korys
Fundraising is tough, time- and travel-intensive and needs a fair amount of salesmanship – not only for startups but also for VCs. Fund managers have to convince fund investors that they can make money for their Limited Partners (LPs). First, General Partners (GPs) need to build a strong portfolio by wisely investing into the best startups they can find. Then they need to create a lot of value post-investment by quickly growing their portfolio companies with the ultimate goal of realising successful exits, i.e. trade sales (the rule) or IPOs (the exception). GPs Rene Savelsberg and Wouter Jonk are Amsterdam-based smart energy VCs who raised their first SET Fund I in 2007 after having learned the trade as Corporate VCs at Philips. Up to now, they have 3 good exits under their belt: Epyon to ABB in 2011, AlertMe to British Gas in 2015 and Sefaira to Trimble on 8 February 2016. Good exits are a key requirement for raising a second fund as LPs look for track record in terms of proven capability to generate returns. Yesterday, SET Ventures announced the first closing of SET Fund II at €60M and plans to add a few more LPs until March 2016.
Read moreAlexander 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.
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 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 moreAlexander Bigge Lidgren presents Swedish Energy Agency and its cleantech portfolio
Ecosummit TV: At ECO13 London, Bigge presents the Swedish Energy Agency that turns out to be the most active funder of cleantech companies in the Nordics with over €120M invested in 2013 and 2012 respectively. As of October 2013, the Swedish Energy Agency had funded 53 energy-related companies with soft loans that either go to projects or directly to the companies. Only if the startup is a success and starts invoicing, the agency gets their money back. Ecofective, ATC Industrial Group and Ecospark are the 3 cases that joined ECO13 London. Clean Motion and their electric 3-wheeler Zbee and Sol Voltaics are also backed by the agency. If you are interested in innovation and dealflow from the Nordics, meet Bigge again at ECO14 Berlin.
Read moreJosefine 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.
Read moreSteven Fawkes talks about the magic of energy efficiency
Ecosummit TV: Steven Fawkes of Day One Energy Solutions talks about the magic of energy efficiency at ECO13 Berlin. How (in)efficient are we? The answer is 11%. Out of 475 exajoules primary energy like fossil fuels or renewables, we only get 55 exajoules useful energy like heat or electricity. That’s why Steve’s blog is called Only Eleven Percent. So there is a massive potential for improvement. In fact, the levelized cost of energy (LCOE), which is a combination of capital costs, operations and maintenance, performance and fuel costs, of energy efficiency is the lowest compared to all other sources of energy. In his talk, Steve gives a couple of examples where investments in energy efficiency will generate fast returns.
Read moreSolarcity files for IPO to build global smart green utility
“Our goal is to become the largest provider of clean distributed energy in the world.” Elon Musk, super hero of the Smart Green Economy, is doing it again. As Chairman and biggest shareholder, Elon prepares for his third IPO after PayPal (2002) and Tesla Motors (2010) and positions Solarcity as the smart green utility of the future. Solarcity just filed for its long-awaited Initial Public Offering on NASDAQ by registering the Form S-1 with the SEC. While IPO date, volume and share price are to be defined, reading this investment prospectus is highly recommended. Update: On 27 November 2012, the price range ($13 to $15) and the volume (10.065.012 shares) was announced (S-1 Amendment 27.11.12).
Read moreJuergen Schmid of Fraunhofer IWES: the energy transformation to 100% renewable can be done
Ecosummit TV: “We are sure that we can supply 100% renewable energy,” says Prof. Dr. Juergen Schmid, Director of Fraunhofer IWES. The necessary transformation of our energy system to the 100% renewable energy system can be done and must be done as soon as possible because global energy demand and CO2 emissions grow exponentially. Renewable energy and energy efficiency are the 2 pillars of the future energy system. Prof. Schmid’s scenarios are an encouraging role model for other countries. If you want to get the big picture how to do it, this Ecosummit TV video is must-see. Let’s accelerate together the global transformation to the Smart Green Economy powered by 100% renewable energy. In fact, that’s exactly why we do Ecosummit.
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 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 moreNorbert Verweyen showcases RWE Effizienz, the smart green utility speedboat of RWE
Ecosummit TV: Norbert Verweyen, Managing Director of RWE Effizienz, showcases the strategy of his smart green utility speedboat which is able to launch new products more quickly than the mother ship RWE. Making money with energy efficiency is a big challenge for utilities and it’s a smart move of RWE to create their own startup with a lot of freedom to try out new ideas in the market. RWE Effizienz can be a good distribution channel for startups that have useful products at competitive prices. If you are active in electric mobility, home automation or decentralised generation you should get in touch with Norbert and his team.
Read moreChristian Deilmann unveils the smart green heating service Tado
Ecosummit TV: Christian Deilmann, Co-Founder and CEO of Tado, presents the Munich-based startup that fosters home energy efficiency at Ecosummit Berlin. Tado is backed by Target Partners and provides a new smart green heating service that saves up to 30% of the energy bill by learning from user behaviour. The smart home solution is based on a microcontroller box that is connected to the central heating system and communicates with Tado’s server and client app. The founders call their service cloud climate control and launch it in fall 2012.
Read morePeter Krebs pitches the green building software startup Sefaira
Ecosummit TV: Peter Krebs, Co-Founder and CTO of Sefaira, presents the UK-US startup at Ecosummit Berlin. Sefaira provides a web platform for the design, construction and retrofit of sustainable and energy efficient buildings. The startup was founded in 2009 and recently raised €8.5M ($10.8M) from Braemar Energy Ventures, Chrysalix SET and Hermes GPE. Green architecture is a big trend which is also accelerated by new laws. In the UK, by 2016, all new homes and commercial buildings must have a net zero carbon footprint in order to receive construction permission.
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 moreSoeren Paulussen pitches Smart Green Cooling Startup Invensor
Invensor’s smart green cooling technology called adsorption converts heat into cold without using electricity. With this approach you can save up to 70% of electricity costs, e.g. in your data centres. Soeren Paulussen, Co-Founder and Head of System Technology, pitches Berlin-based Invensor to investors at ECO11.
Read moreRobert Seiter of Ernst & Young presents Global Cleantech Venture Insights
Robert Seiter, Head of Cleantech EMEIA at accounting firm Ernst & Young, presents Global Cleantech Venture Insights at ECO11. In 2010, the Cleantech industry received 15% of global VC investments and proves that it is a huge business opportunity. As of Q3/2010, there are 1.434 private VC-backed Cleantech companies with €22.16B in equity raised. US companies are funded at a 4 times higher level than European companies while the Energy Efficiency sector turns out to be especially popular among VCs. Now you can watch Robert’s ECO11 talk on Ecosummit TV.
Read morePascal Klein pitches Tire Recycling Smart Green Startup Jewel Pyrum Innovations
French-German tire recycling Cleantech company Pyrum Innovations really is a smart green startup jewel. Pascal Klein, CEO of Pyrum, delivers a professional investor pitch at ECO11. Pascal embodies the new generation of smart green entrepreneuers raising millions of venture capital for a smarter and greener way of reusing our resources and minimising waste. He is 24 years old. We need more young founders willing to accelerate the transformation to the Smart Green Economy. Enjoy Pascal on Ecosummit TV and get in touch if you look for a hot startup deal.
Read moreMads Jensen pitches Smart Green Building Software Startup Sefaira
Every city has to become a smart green city and every building should go smart green, too. Mads Jensen, Co-Founder and CEO, pitches Sefaira at ECO11. The UK- and US-based startup offers software for designing sustainable buildings and optimising their energy efficiency and carbon footprint. Sefaira is currently in private beta and invites innovative architects and building engineers to test it for new projects. Investors are also welcome to join and accelerate the smart green building design revolution.
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