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- February
2016
SET 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 more- 30
- April
2015
Johan 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 more- 15
- December
2014
WeSustain raises €4M Series B from VNT Management, HTGF, KfW and MBG
Ecosummit TV: Every company in every industry has to go green and make and sell sustainable products. At the same time, smart green investors take sustainability reports very seriously when making investment decisions. In September 2014, the EU Commission issued their long-awaited directive for mandatory sustainability reports for companies with more than 500 employees that has to be translated into national law within 2 years. Now Enterprise Sustainability Management (ESM) software providers like WeSustain are en vogue. CEO Manfred Heil expects the market to triple within the next 4 years. Customer references like Daimler, Commerzbank and Allianz as well as reseller Telekom will help the well positioned German startup and its team of 20 employees to grow even faster than the market.
Read more- 1
- December
2013
Patric Gresko presents the European Investment Fund
Ecosummit TV: At ECO13 London, Patric Gresko gives an update on the cleantech activities of the European Investment Fund. Patric is the EIF’s resident Mr. Cleantech who wants to increase the support for cleantech VCs. In particular, the EIF is interested in training and funding first-time management teams as a way to grow the number of active cleantech investors in Europe. The EIF is Europe’s leading fund-of-fund with €12B of assets under management of which €3.8B go into early stage VCs. Since 2006, €280M were invested in 12 pure play cleantech funds managed by 9 fund managers (VC firms). A few more fund investment deals are in the pipeline.
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- 19
- June
2013
Patric Gresko pitches the Corporate Innovation Platform of the European Investment Fund
Ecosummit TV: Patric Gresko pitches the European Investment Fund at ECO13 Berlin. The EIF is Europe’s leading fund-of-fund with €12B under management. Since 2006, they have invested in 9 cleantech funds managed by 8 fund managers, i.e. dedicated cleantech VC firms. Patric is the EIF’s resident Mr. Cleantech and wants to support more cleantech VCs in the future. As most players in the market, the EIF also rides the corporate wave acknowledging the increasing importance of large multinational companies for the success of cleantech startups. Consequently, the EIF set out to raise capital from corporates for their new Corporate Innovation Platform (CorIP). One of the 4 investment themes is sustainability for which 10 €10M tickets shall be raised from 10 corporates. The EIF then tops it up with another €50M. These €150M will be invested in the best cleantech VCs in Europe. If you are one of them, talk to Patric.
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