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- May
2017
Perfect pitch: How to raise money for your startup
Startups not only got to pitch to and network with potential investors at Ecosummit Berlin 2017, they also got some valuable lessons on how to do it right. Leonie Baneke from Eneco Smart Energy gets sent lots of startup pitch decks, asking her for capital. This is the second year in a row Eneco has sponsored Ecosummit and Baneke says, they were part of the event since the beginning of their corporate venturing activities to look for cool and challenging ideas to invest in. The Dutch have money to spend, allocating 10 to 30 million euros per year to invest in external startups, follow-on investments and internal startups.
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- January
2017
Icos Capital raises €50M IC Fund III from Akzo Nobel, Bühler, Wuppermann and City of Rotterdam
Corporates play an important role for startups and VCs and often combine direct and fund investments to get access to external innovation. After a 2-year fundraising journey that even included the bankruptcy of one LP, the Dutch VC Icos Capital announces today the first closing of its third fund Icos Capital Fund III at €50M. The fund investors comprise the City of Rotterdam and the corporates Akzo Nobel from the Netherlands, Bühler from Switzerland and Wuppermann from Germany. Peter van Gelderen, one of the 3 GPs managing the fund, describes their investment philosophy as collaborative corporate venturing and emphasizes the close cooperation with the 3 multinationals that don’t have inhouse corporate VC units. According to Peter, new corporate relationships take a lot of time and many meetings until the board makes an LP commitment in your VC fund.
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- November
2016
Statkraft Ventures teams up with ETF Partners and leads $5M Series A in Greenbird from Norway
Ubiquitous smart meters are a key infrastructure component for the smart green utilities of the future because they generate a lot of valuable data and enable new energy services and dynamic pricing. In fact, it is a surprise that smart meter rollouts happen rather slowly in most countries due to slow regulators and hesitant utilities that are not yet ready to make substantial upfront investments in millions of smart meters that may bring more economic benefits to consumers than to the utilities themselves. Luckily, the Nordic countries and their resident startups have a headstart. Today, Düsseldorf-based corporate VC Statkraft Ventures leads the $5M Series A in Greenbird teaming up with London-based ETF Partners who were on the top of their potential co-investor list. The Norwegian energy IoT startup is Statkraft’s second investment this year after DEPsys from Switzerland in June.
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- September
2016
Heliatek raises €80M Series D to increase production capacity by a factor of 40
Capital-intensive smart green startups in Europe aiming at building their own hardware factories have a hard time fundraising. Financially motivated VCs require capital efficiency and prefer hardware startups that outsource manufacturing and the necessary CAPEX. Financing new PV factories in Europe is even more difficult due to China’s hegemony. It turns out it can only be done if you develop the next generation of PV technology, continuously improve efficiency and work diligently on building a co-investor syndicate of family offices, corporates and governments. Keep in mind that it was the Chinese government that backed a myriad of Chinese manufacturers to hijack the global PV industry. After a very long fundraising journey, 10-year old Organic Photovoltaics (OPV) pioneer Heliatek finally found the capital to build its second 3G solar factory in Dresden, Germany’s epicentre of photonics and organic semiconductors.
Read more- 20
- March
2016
Smart green angel Frank Thelen invests in Lilium Aviation to fly an electric plane
Ecosummit TV: Electric aviation is the future of aviation. Co-Founder and CEO Daniel Wiegand pitched Lilium Aviation at ECO15 London on 6 October 2015. On 7 March 2016, the famous German smart green angel Frank Thelen invested in Lilium Aviation buying 15% of the company. The Munich-based startup is supported by Climate KIC and develops an electric plane that can take off and land vertically due to tiltable electric engines. The plane has a beautiful design, will travel at 400 km/h and achieve an all-electric range of 500 km. The first manned flight is planned in 2016 and the commercial rollout starts in 2018. The Lilium jet costs €300K and can already be pre-ordered online – Tesla style. We think Lilium Aviation is one of the hottest and most innovative smart green startups in Europe. For sure, Elon Musk will love it, too.
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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- 27
- July
2015
Andreas Spiess pitches Solarkiosk at ECO15 Berlin
Ecosummit TV: Andreas Spiess pitches Solarkiosk at ECO15 Berlin. The Berlin-based smart green startup operates Solarkiosks designed by Graft in emerging markets and targets people living in offgrid communities at the Base-of-the-Pyramid (BoP). By the end of 2015, 200 Solarkiosks will be online in 7 countries in Africa (Ethiopia, Kenya, Botswana, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ghana and Nigeria). Founded in 2011, Solarkiosk has got over 60 employees, raised more than €10M and will be fundraising in 2016 looking for the best impact investors and VCs that believe in the tremendous business opportunities in emerging markets. Solarkiosk’s ultimate goal are 300.000 Solarkiosks in Africa, Asia and South America. Solarkiosk is one of the most exciting startups in Europe and a superb impact investment opportunity.
Read more- 23
- April
2015
Henrik Olsen chats with Jan Michael Hess about being a smart green VC
Ecosummit TV: “We like to get to know the people behind the business,” explains Henrik Olsen, Partner at Environmental Technologies Fund (ETF), when it comes to building a strong relationship before the investment. Sometimes, relationship building can take a couple of years. In fact, it took 4.5 years in the case of E-Leather from the first meeting until the investment. This may well be a slow investment record but what counts in the end is the fund performance as a result of backing the right startups. E-Leather reprocesses waste leather while making it lighter and stronger to save weight and fuel, e.g. in planes.
Read more- 26
- March
2015
Jan Marckhoff pitches BEN Energy
Ecosummit TV: Jan Marckhoff pitches BEN Energy at ECO14 Berlin. The smart green startup enables customer intelligence and engagement for utilities and competes with Opower and Tendril. Being the market leader in Switzerland, BEN Energy recently entered the German market and already won a large customer and a powerful distribution partner. The founders successfully bootstrapped their spin-off from ETH Zurich to €1M annual revenues and are currently raising their first financing round. Jan will pitch again at ECO15 Berlin to change the way people experience energy.
Read more- 13
- March
2015
Felix Grolman pitches Grundgrün
Ecosummit TV: Felix Grolman pitches Grundgrün at ECO14 Berlin. The Berlin-based startup is building a next generation smart green utility focusing 100% on renewable energy. Grundgrün’s core business is the direct marketing of renewable energy assets that they sell on short-term, long-term and balancing markets as well as directly to households and companies. The key to their success is an integrated IT infrastructure that enables sourcing, trading and distribution of energy as well as innovative energy services such as virtual power plants and production forecasting. Founded in 2011, Grundgrün is a fast-growing late stage startup with a team of 65 employees and backed by the family office Aeris Capital. Grundgrün is currently fundraising to further accelerate growth in Germany and new international markets.
Read more- 5
- March
2015
Jay Marathe of Cartagena Capital takes startups from fundraising to successful exits
Ecosummit TV: Startups and VCs alike share the need for more and better exits. While we believe that Pan-European co-investing is an important success factor for achieving good exits, we acknowledge that exits are challenging and often are facilitated by corporate finance advisors representing the sell or buy side. In this context, Jay Marathe of Cartagena Capital talks about taking startups from fundraising to successful exits at ECO14 Berlin. The timing of the exit is key. Startups should constantly listen to the market for strong exit signals: competitors get acquired, customers place huge orders or buyers have lots of cash and start calling. At the same time, it makes sense to continue fundraising and creating value until you reach key valuation milestones and have a nice selection of LOIs from multiple buyers on the table. A recent exit is the $100M acquisition of AlertMe by British Gas, their biggest customer and one of their VCs. This transaction also enabled the second exit of SET Ventures.
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- February
2015
Nils Aldag pitches Sunfire
Ecosummit TV: Nils Aldag pitches Sunfire at ECO14 Berlin. The Dresden-based late stage startup makes very efficient solid oxide electrolysers and fuel cells using the same technology platform. Last year Sunfire won Ecosummit Award 2014 Silver and entered Cleantech Group’s 2014 Global Cleantech 100. Sunfire has got 80 employees and is backed by Electranova Capital, Total Energy Ventures, Bilfinger Venture Capital and KfW. Their impressive list of customers includes ThyssenKrupp and Vaillant. Upon request Nils will share more customers that prove Sunfire’s enormous market traction that may lead to €10M revenues in 2015. Nils currently raises their next financing round and welcomes new strategic and financial investors that believe in Sunfire’s growth potential in the global hydrogen market.
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- February
2015
Soren Mouritsen pitches ROMO Wind
Ecosummit TV: There are more than 350.000 wind turbines operating and there is still a lot to be done to optimise performance by harmonising the wind direction and turbine orientation in realtime. At ECO14 Berlin, Soren Mouritsen pitches ROMO Wind and explains how the iSpin technology is able to continuously measure wind direction and speed in front of the rotor, rather than behind, and correct the yaw misalignment of the turbine accordingly. This increases wind farm production by 2 percent creating a target market of 1 billion Euros. The Swiss startup has got 23 employees and is backed by Yellow&Blue, ABB Technology Ventures, b-to-v and the business angel Christian Reitberger. Existing customers include Vattenfall and EDP Renewables. ROMO Wind is currently fundraising again and interested in talking to new investors.
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- January
2015
Holger Ulland pitches O-Flexx
Ecosummit TV: Waste heat is a very big but rarely used energy resource. Being back at Ecosummit, Holger Ulland pitches O-Flexx at ECO14 Berlin. The smart green startup develops and manufactures in their Duisburg-based 1 MW factory thermoelectric generators that convert heat to electricity. The thermoelectric generators can be used in the steel, automotive and locomotive industries as well as for heating systems and autonomous sensors. The first customers are SMS Siemag (steel plants) and Bombardier (diesel locomotives). O-Flexx is backed by Emerald Technology Ventures and NRW Bank whom they met at ECO12 Berlin. O-Flexx has got a very strong IP portfolio, first revenues and is currently fundraising to accelerate its growth.
Read more- 15
- January
2015
Paul Leibold pitches Adaptive City Mobility and its City Etaxi
Ecosummit TV: Paul Leibold pitches Adaptive City Mobility and its City Etaxi at ECO14 Berlin. The capital efficient strategy for developing a new electric vehicle is a value web of strong partners that contribute technology, people and capital to co-develop a new car and co-create a new market. That’s exactly what Paul did when he brought together Vispiron, Roding, BMZ, Heinzmann and Fraunhofer ESK in 2012 to work on his dream of an electric taxi optimised for smart green cities. The partners jointly invested €10M and received funding from the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. The City Etaxi is a lightweight 3 seater that supports battery swapping and reaches 80 km/h. Now Paul looks for investors and ambitious city managers that want to support pilot projects with connected etaxi fleets.
Read more- 31
- July
2014
Peter 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.
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- July
2014
Benjamin 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 more- 22
- July
2013
Bart Markus checks the reality of cleantech venture capital
Ecosummit TV: At Ecosummit Berlin 2013, Bart Markus of Wellington Partners provides a very honest reality check of the cleantech venture capital industry. Cleantech investments have gone down, money sits very tight and it is equally difficult for startups and VCs alike to raise new capital. In fact, since 2012 Bart did not make any new investment but rather focused his money and time on his existing portfolio. Now Wellington thinks about whether they should focus on the Internet or raise a dedicated cleantech fund. Still, Bart is an optimist, loves cleantech hardware and sees light at the end of the tunnel. He recommends that startups limit the time and money needed until proof point, tap into other sources of capital and build relationships with potential acquirers early on. Watch Bart on Ecosummit TV to get the full story.
Read more- 28
- June
2013
Jan Marckhoff pitches Ben Energy from Switzerland
Ecosummit TV: Jan Marckhoff pitches Ben Energy at ECO13 Berlin. The Swiss startup is a spin-off from ETH Zurich and already provides their customer engagement solution to 17 utilities in Switzerland, covering 25% of the Swiss market. Being financed by the founders and customers so far, Ben Energy now looks for €1.2M Series A to increase their sales team in Germany and other new territories. Ben Energy competes with Opower that raised $65M and has got 400 employees. Comparing the two startups, it’s fair to say that the really lean startup comes from Switzerland. In my personal opinion, Ben Energy is a great investment opportunity for any cleantech VC who likes fast scalable business models that are capital-light and proven in the market. Opower may be their exit channel.
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- March
2013
Stefan Roest pitches Dutch solar testing startup Eternal Sun
Ecosummit TV: Eternal Sun was a real highlight at Ecosummit Düsseldorf 2012. The lean cleantech startup from TU Delft in the Netherlands develops and manufactures state-of-the-art solar testing equipment and found customers all over the world within 1.5 years after company foundation. The audience was impressed by the fact that Eternal Sun focuses so well on lean product development and fast customer development while still being self-funded by the founders. CTO Stefan Roest delivers an awesome pitch on Ecosummit TV and now looks for VCs that know the solar testing market well and can help scale sales and production.
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