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.
Read moreRene Savelsberg pitches cleantech VC Chrysalix SET from Amsterdam
Ecosummit TV: Rene Savelsberg pitches Chrysalix SET at ECO13 Berlin. Rene believes that the investment focus on technologies with capital-efficient business models as well as their global expertise are the key success factors to achieve returns in the big cleantech universe. The Dutch VC is one of the few players that managed to successfully exit a portfolio company. They sold Epyon to ABB in 2011 which became the new EV fast charging business unit of the Swiss corporate. Chrysalix SET’s active portfolio includes Enocean, Alertme, Sefaira and the new investment Luxexcel, a 3D printing technology company focused on the LED industry. We are happy that Rene joined our Ecosummit Advisors and look forward to accelerating the best startups in the market.
Read moreLaurent Giai-Miniet pitches EnOcean
Ecosummit TV: Laurent Giai-Miniet pitches the late stage cleantech startup EnOcean at ECO12 Berlin. EnOcean provides wireless energy harvesting technology for smart green buildings and has become the de facto standard for batteryless building and home automation. Sensors and switches powered by EnOcean modules are used to control the lighting, heating and cooling of rooms depending on room occupancy and other variables such as open or closed windows. EnOcean’s investors include Wellington, Emerald, Chrysalix SET and Siemens. If you are planning a new or retrofit smart green building, EnOcean is the right choice.
Read moreECO12 Update: Wirtschaftswoche, ClimatePartner, Startups, Speakers and Laing playing live
Ecosummit 2012, our third international Smart Green Business Conference for startups, VCs, corporates and utilities, makes fantastic progress: We confirmed 36 speakers, 15 sponsors, 18 partners, 45 jury members and 24 award nominees. New ECO12 Media Partner is the leading German business weekly Wirtschaftswoche. ClimatePartner sponsors our carbon offset to make ECO12 climate neutral. 5 startups are ECO12 Silver Sponsors and join our startup demo area. And we signed the Berlin-based electronic a capella band Laing to play live at the ECO12 Award party on 22 March. Many good reasons to buy your ticket or (re)consider sponsoring our Smart Green Business Network and Conference.
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