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- September
2023
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 more- 30
- 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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- April
2015
Thermondo raises €6M Series B from Rocket Internet, Holtzbrinck Ventures, E.ON, IBB and Grey Corp
“We only raise as much capital as we need to reach the next company growth and valuation milestone,” says Thermondo‘s CEO Philipp Pausder. In fact, that’s a pretty smart fundraising strategy that ensures the founders do not sell off their company too quickly before substantial value has been created with the help of the current financing round. Today, the Berlin-based late stage startup announced their €6M Series B that they collected from Rocket Internet, Holtzbrinck Ventures, E.ON, IBB and Grey Corp. Thermondo sells heating systems online and dispatches internal teams from 12 cities to every corner in Germany to install the units at the customers’ premises. Learning from Solarcity, Thermondo decided a while ago to vertically integrate the installation process in order to manage it digitally and minimise process costs.
Read more- 12
- December
2014
George Hanna pitches Qinous
Ecosummit TV: George Hanna pitches Qinous at ECO14 Berlin. Qinous develops smart energy storage and management systems for offgrid and ongrid applications starting at 30 KW and going up to the MW scale by combining a large number of battery systems. Qinous acts as a solution provider that makes the system in Berlin and then ships it to the customer ready for installation. Being independent of the underlying battery technology, there is a strong focus on thorough battery testing as part of the design and production process. Founded in Q4 2013, the smart green startup raised their seed round from Investitionsbank Berlin in Q1 2014 and sold the first system in Q2 2014. That’s what we call fast execution. Next year, Qinous plans to raise their Series A from strategic investors and is very interested in getting to know the best smart green VCs in Europe.
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- December
2014
Stephan Schulze and Konstantin Hanssen present Investitionsbank Berlin
Ecosummit TV: According to Stephan Schulze of IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft, Berlin is a smart green business location for startups that has changed tremendously during the last 25 years. In fact, we count more than 30 fundable smart green startups in Berlin of which 5 are backed by IBB: Ubitricity, Thermondo, Geo-en, ECF Farmsystems and Qinous. IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft was founded in 1997 as a 100% subsidiary of Investitionsbank Berlin, the business development bank of Berlin. Next to venture capital, IBB provides a lot of support to SMEs including grants, public loans, bank credits, guarantees and mezzanine capital. IBB is a well-connected local business partner that always keeps their door open for ambitious founders based in Berlin or planning to relocate.
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- April
2012
Smart Green Dealflow: Sefaira, Geo-En, Tado and WeSustain
Let’s toast to 4 smart green startups that successfully closed new funding rounds during the last months. Sefaira, Geo-En, Tado and WeSustain have all been on our Ecosummit stage and are active members of our Smart Green Business Network. Sefaira, Tado and WeSustain were also nominated for the Ecosummit Award 2012. Braemar Energy Ventures leads Sefaira’s €8.2M round with co-investors Chrysalix SET and Hermes GPE. eCapital and IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft invest €4M in Berlin-based Geo-En. Target Partners seed finances Tado while NBank, MBG, KfW and High-Tech Gründerfonds back WeSustain. Let’s take a closer look at the startups and some of their new investors.
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