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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.
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- June
2022
Ecosummit Berlin 23-24 June 2022
We want to live in 100% sustainable cities powered by 100% renewable energy and 100% electric mobility. Founded in 2010, Ecosummit accelerates smart green startups in energy, mobility and cities to save our climate, decarbonise our economy and electrify our planet. Our events are startup markets enabling fundraising, lead and co-investing, corporate venturing, open innovation and M&A. Ecosummit Berlin 23-24 June 2022 takes place at Spindler & Klatt, Köpenicker Strasse 16-17, 10997 Berlin, the best smart green startup conference in the perfect location for sunshine and outdoor networking. Get your tickets and join us. Ecosummit is a European platform supported by 55 sponsors from 17 countries. The agenda features 108 speakers including 67 startups. Check out our amazing list of 300 participants and start arranging your meetings with the help of Linkedin. All participants must be fully COVID-19 vaccinated/recovered. We serve vegetarian/vegan food, excellent wines, good music and 2 dinner parties. Extend your stay for the weekend, bring your families and enjoy our special programme for Ecosummit participants, included in the conference ticket, on Saturday, 25 June 2022: We celebrate the Ecosummit Afterparty on the island Lindwerder, Havelchaussee 43, 14193 Berlin in the Havel, Grunewald from 15:00 until late. Let’s accelerate smart green startups together to maximise our impact until 2030.
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- October
2016
Ecosummit accelerates smart green London on 11 October 2016 at CodeNode
We believe that startups need corporates and corporates need startups. Startups need corporates as development partners, customers, distribution channels and investors to make better products and grow faster. At the same time, corporates need startups to sell new products to their customer base and survive the global competition. By connecting the companies that should be connected, Ecosummit accelerates startups, investors and corporates with a focus on smart green energy, mobility and cities. Our unique conferences are a physical marketplace enabling personal meetings and long-term relationships in a relaxed and productive atmosphere. Our next Ecosummit takes place on 11 October 2016 at CodeNode in the City of London. The agenda features 37 startup pitches and the conference will be recorded for our YouTube channel Ecosummit TV. Check out our participants, get your tickets and join us. Let’s warm up with a few innovation stories that will be elaborated at ECO16 London.
Read more- 14
- September
2014
Gina Domanig chats with Jan Michael Hess about being a smart green VC
Ecosummit TV: Gina Domanig is a pioneer of cleantech venture capital. She got started in 2000 after a tempting call from a headhunter. Since then, Zurich-based Emerald Technology Ventures raised 3 funds and has got €370M of assets under management. Gina likes being a smart green VC because it is a multi-dimensional job involving technology, finance, industrial applications, transactions and, most importantly, lots of smart and inspiring people. It is also a tough job because you have to be available all the time for your portfolio and LPs. Gina travels almost every week, spends 50% of her time with the portfolio companies and the rest with investors, dealflow and fund management. In today’s environment, VCs have to be very involved in securing the ongoing financing of a startup, helping them recruit the best team and making the connections with the relevant corporates who may become customers, partners or even acquirers when it’s time for an exit. Next to the startups, the real customers of the VC are the investors. The majority of Emerald’s LPs are corporates whose key motivation for fund investments is fostering open innovation. There is a lot to learn from Gina and we are grateful that she joined ECO14 Berlin.
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- August
2014
Rolf Adam of Cisco talks about new business models for public lighting by making it intelligent
Ecosummit TV: Smart green cities need intelligent lighting. At ECO13 London, Rolf Adam of Cisco talks about new business models for public lighting by making it intelligent. IP-based lighting infrastructure reduces OPEX by remotely managing and metering a large network of street lamps. When cities and utilities plan to upgrade public lighting to energy-efficient LEDs, they should also think about new business models that are enabled by the internet, sensors and smart algorithms. For example, the Dutch startup Tvilight implemented the brilliant idea of light-on-demand with the help of sensors that detect nearby users. If there aren’t any people or cars present, the street lights are dimmed and energy is saved. The street lights of the 21st century may be used for wireless internet access, location-based advertising, traffic control, street parking, measuring air quality and, last but not least, charging electric vehicles as promoted by Berlin-based Ubitricity. The more services you want to integrate, the more service providers you have to bring together to make money with smart lighting.
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- August
2014
Susana Quintana-Plaza presents the co-investment strategy of EON
Ecosummit TV: Susana Quintana-Plaza presents the co-investment strategy of EON at ECO13 London. Since 2013 the German utility has been very active as a corporate co-investor in the US and Europe having made 9 direct investments including Opower, Sungevity, Bloom Energy, Orcan Energy (ECO14 Award Bronze) and, most recently, Berlin-based heating system online retailer Thermondo. EON also made 1 fund investment into the American VC Westly Group to quickly learn the trade. With 35 million customers and revenues of €122.5B in 2013, EON co-invests with the aim of rolling out the startups’ products to their customer base to help generate new revenues. This means that startups should have a competitive product and revenues to get EON excited about a participation. The next opportunity to pitch to Susana and her team is ECO14 London on 7-8 October.
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- 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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- February
2014
Claire Cockerton presents the future city accelerator Level39
Ecosummit TV: Claire Cockerton presents the future city accelerator Level39 at ECO13 London. Based in Canary Wharf and backed by the Canary Wharf Group, Level39 is a technology accelerator specialised in fostering startups in the financial, retail and smart green city industries. While Level39 does not invest, they provide affordable office space which in some cases may be sponsored by a corporate. Moreover, the accelerator facilitates coaching sessions with mentors and business relationships with local companies that act as pilot customers for bringing new services to the market. Level39 welcomes startups from all over the world that want to touch down in the Docklands to co-invent the city of the future.
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- 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.
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- August
2013
Bernard Scherrer fosters open innovation at EDF and invites cleantech startups to work together
Ecosummit TV: Bernard Scherrer presents the open innovation strategy of EDF at ECO13 Berlin. The French utility has got 38 million customers and annual revenues of €65B. EDF embraces open innovation because they want to work with cleantech startups that have valuable solutions for their large customer base. For example, the Berlin-based EV charging startup Ubitricity is currently being tested in EDF’s R&D labs. Bernard’s open innovation team wants to foster entrepreneurship and promote lean startup principles inside EDF. In some cases, the cooperation may lead to an investment for which the corporate VC Electranova Capital and the French seed fund ATI (Amorçage Technologique Investissement) were created. It is encouraging to see the growing number of corporate VCs and open innovation units that are active in Europe and it is even better to start working with them.
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- June
2013
Smart green corporate venture capital panel with Eon, Aster, Electranova and Entelios
Ecosummit TV: Tim Lafferty of Global Corporate Venturing moderates the smart green corporate venture capital panel featuring Susana Quintana-Plaza (E.ON), Alexander Schlaepfer (Aster), Philippe Ringenbach (Electranova) and Tom Schulz (Entelios). Being an important pillar of the open innovation strategy of multinationals, corporate venture capital is a big trend as 500 new CVC units were created in the last 3 years. At least 10% of the CVCs are active in one or several of the cleantech sectors. Next to money, CVCs offer strategic value through market access and technological expertise.
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- March
2013
Bernard Scherrer discusses open innovation at EDF and introduces Electranova Capital
Ecosummit TV: Bernard Scherrer discusses open innovation at EDF, one of the biggest utilities in Europe. Part of the long-term innovation strategy is the new corporate venture capital fund called Electranova Capital that already made 2 startup investments in Actility (smart grid M2M applications) and Seatower (offshore wind foundations). To get the cooperation started, Bernard and his colleague Valerie are interested in doing pilot projects with the best cleantech startups in Europe that fit into their open innovation areas. Please get in touch if you are interested in doing business with EDF.
Read more- 10
- August
2012
Marie-Anne Brodschii presents the Veolia Innovation Accelerator
Ecosummit TV: Marie-Anne Brodschii, VP Innovation at Veolia, explains how Veolia drives cleantech innovation and how the cooperation with startups works in practice. The French corporate has got cleantech in its DNA and is pretty big: 230.000 employees generate €29.6B revenues and are active on 5 continents. Veolia’s business is focused on the management of water, waste, energy and energy efficiency. In fact, Veolia is very open towards smart green innovation coming from startups. To foster open innovation, Veolia launched the Veolia Innovation Accelerator (VIA) 2 years ago.
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- May
2012
Bernard Scherrer explains how EDF fosters open innovation
Ecosummit TV: Corporates are elephants and startups are mice. EDF is the French utility elephant on its long way to become a smart green utility. Bernard Scherrer is Head of Open Innovation at EDF and his job is to bring external innovation inside and internal innovation outside. It’s encouraging to see that corporate elephants make an effort to become friends with startup mice. Talk to Bernard if you are a smart green startup and want to do a pilot project with EDF. The best of you may even end up as new suppliers of EDF. To get a briefing on EDF’s open innovation strategy, watch Bernard’s authentic ECO12 talk on Ecosummit TV. I also recommend the fantastic books of Henry Chesbrough who believes that open innovation is the best strategy to innovate in a hyperconnected and hypercollaborative economy.
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