Cleantech exit – Samsung buys Novaled from Dresden
Congratulations to Novaled and its founders and investors which include eCapital, Germany’s most active cleantech VC. This is a fantastic exit that brings hope and money to the cleantech startup industry in Europe. Samsung Cheil Industries (aka Samsung Chemical) and Samsung Electronics buy 50% and 40% respectively of the Dresden-based late stage startup for a total of €260M of which €30M are bound to reaching further growth targets. Corporate VC Samsung Ventures maintains their 10% stake in the transaction. Founded in 2001, Novaled is a world leader in OLED (Organic LED) materials. Following a fabless strategy from the beginning, Samsung is Novaled’s biggest customer and it comes as no suprise that they turn out to be the acquirer. Novaled’s revenues grew from €10M in 2010 to €26M in 2012. Thus, Novaled’s valuation at exit is 10 times the 2012 revenues or, in other words, the price sales ratio is 10.
Read moreKarl Leo, Jan Blochwitz-Nimoth and Martin Pfeiffer win Deutscher Zukunftspreis 2011
Congratulations to Prof. Dr. Karl Leo, Dr. Jan Blochwitz-Nimoth and Dr. Martin Pfeiffer for winning the Deutscher Zukunftspreis 2011 (DZP11) today. The DZP11 is awarded by the German President and includes €250K prize money. I am very proud of this trio and their work. Karl Leo is university professor at TU Dresden and co-founder of both Novaled and Heliatek, Jan Blochwitz-Nimoth is co-founder and CSO (Chief Scientific Officer) of Novaled and Martin Pfeiffer is co-founder and CTO of Heliatek. It’s all about organic electronics, organic LED and organic PV made in Dresden, Europe’s leading cluster for green photonics.
Read more3G Solar made in Germany – Heliatek is getting ready to take Organic PV global
The more I learn about this company, the more I like it. Heliatek is a world leader of Organic PV (Organic Photovoltaics) and they are getting ready to prove it. Since we visited Heliatek 6 months ago in Dresden for Ecosummit TV, a couple of things have happened. Heliatek has a new CEO and a beautiful new corporate identity. They’re in the middle of building the first factory in the world for OPV panels with a roll-to-roll vacuum production process. “For our next-gen organic solar cells we had to invent a totally new production system,” says Heliatek’s CTO Martin Pfeiffer. Heliatek’s factory of the future goes live in 2012. Kleiner, VantagePoint, Khosla, RockPort and DFJ take note: Heliatek plans a new funding round next year and wants the best US VCs in. A multi-billion dollar market is waiting to be conquered and 3G Solar made in Germany volunteers to do the job.
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