- 11
- August
2013
Markus Leuenberger pitches the Dutch cleantech institute ECN
Ecosummit TV: Markus Leuenberger pitches ECN at ECO13 Berlin. The Dutch research institute is based in a beautiful location in the dunes north of Amsterdam. 550 researchers and experts develop new green technologies with a strong focus on renewable energy and energy storage including Power to Gas. Recently, ECN launched a new technical due diligence service for cleantech VCs across Europe. This makes a lot of sense as many cleantech VCs don’t have sufficient inhouse competence in each of the many cross-industry cleantech markets. Moreover, the cleantech institute also helps startups during product development. A small version of Fraunhofer in Germany, ECN looks like they are equally smart and very entrepreneurial. If you need deep cleantech technology expertise, go and talk to ECN.
Read more- 5
- July
2013
Carl Berninghausen pitches Sunfire
Ecosummit TV: Carl Berninghausen pitches Sunfire at ECO13 Berlin. The Dresden-based cleantech startup made very good progress since their first performance at ECO11 Berlin. Now they have 50 employees, most of them engineers, who aim at €5M revenues in 2013. Recently, Bilfinger Venture Capital joined as corporate VC and strategic partner for the construction and operation of new Sunfire plants. Sunfire’s core technology is a high-temperature fuel cell which can be used for power-to-gas and power-to-liquids processes. At Ecosummit Berlin, we observed Sunfire in intensive talks with more than one VC. That’s the way it should be.
Read more- 16
- April
2013
Urban Keussen introduces Connecting Energies, the new CVC of EON
Ecosummit TV: Urban Keussen presents EON’s innovation strategy for its smart green utility transformation and introduces their new corporate venture capital (CVC) activities. At ECO12 Duesseldorf, Urban announced EON’s CVC called “Connecting Energies” that co-invests in mid and late stage startups in Europe and the US that are focused on distributed renewable energy, energy storage, smart grid and customers and data. Moreover, Urban and his team work on a lot of innovation that does not have a business case yet but may well have in the future. Thus they are open for joint projects with smart green startups, especially if their solution is able to accelerate the Energiewende (energy transformation), the key task of all utilities.
Read more- 18
- October
2012
Urban Keussen presents EON’s smart green innovation strategy
Ecosummit TV: Urban Keussen, SVP Technology & Innovation, presents the smart green innovation strategy of EON at ECO12 Berlin. Urban gives a very informative lecture on how a big utility like EON analyses megatrends and new key technologies that are decisive for the Energiewende (energy transformation). Although EON is still very active in large-scale energy generation with fossil fuels, it invested over €7B in renewables during the last couple of years, mostly in wind. Urban is the perfect point of contact for high-quality cleantech startups that are interested in doing business with EON. We look forward to his upcoming talk at ECO12 Düsseldorf.
Read more- 8
- October
2012
Smart green dealflow: SolarFuel, Govecs, Tiramizoo, Sortech and Evodos
5 smart green startups that are connected to Ecosummit in various ways successfully raised new venture capital during the last months: Power to Gas pioneer SolarFuel (€7.5M, Germany), electric scooter maker Govecs (€10M, Germany), bike messenger platform Tiramizoo (undisclosed, Germany), sustainable cooling provider Sortech (undisclosed, Germany) and algae harvester Evodos (undisclosed, Netherlands). Let’s take a closer look at the products and business models of the startups and their new investors.
Read more- 27
- August
2012
Pascal Mauberger pitches the hydrogen storage startup McPhy Energy from France
Ecosummit TV: CEO Pascal Mauberger pitches the French hydrogen storage startup at ECO12 Berlin. Founded in 2008, MyPhy Energy raised €15.2M in 2 rounds from Emertec, Sofinnova Partners and Gimv. They are now 35 people and want to grow to over 100 in a few years. McPhy’s technology is able to store large amounts of hydrogen at low pressure and enables onsite production and storage of hydrogen. If you take renewable energy as a source, you can create green hydrogen using an electrolyser from one of McPhy’s partners. McPhy Energy is on a promising growth path and if you need large-scale hydrogen storage, please get in touch with Pascal.
Read more- 8
- July
2012
Stephan Rieke presents power to gas startup Solarfuel
Ecosummit TV: Stephan Rieke presents Etogas (ex-SolarFuel) which is the global first mover commercialising Power to Gas (P2G) technology. The German startup converts renewable energy to renewable methane (synthetic natural gas) by integrating electrolysis and methanation into one solution. Power to Gas is useful for storing and transporting huge amounts of energy and enables the coupling of the electricity and gas networks to create the smart green super grid. The motivation for developing the new P2G technology is driven by the volatility of wind and solar – the wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine – and the resulting need for huge long-term energy storage. The potential storage capacity of Germany’s gas network could power the country for several months.
Read more- 12
- February
2012
3 Smart Green Startups from Germany Poised to Conquer the Global Market
As a warmup for ECO12, I would like to present 3 smart green startups from Germany that are in a unique position to be successful on the global Cleantech market. They have unique technology, achieved major milestones and look for strategic investors, partners and clients to enter new markets and grow faster. Let’s take a closer look at SolarFuel (Power to Gas), Heliatek (Organic Photovoltaics) and Flinc (Realtime Ride Sharing). All 3 startups are nominated for the ECO12 Award and join Ecosummit 2012 on 22-23 March in Berlin.
Read more- 23
- November
2011
SolarFuel pioneers Power to Gas technology and new multi-billion Euro market
Yesterday I joined the Power to Gas (P2G) conference organised by Bundesnetzagentur and Fraunhofer IWES. It was a fantastic event, I learned a lot and a couple of things are clear to me now. The German startup SolarFuel is the global Power to Gas first mover. In fact, SolarFuel is capable of providing an integrated P2G solution and insanely well positioned to conquer the new multi-billion Euro market of storing renewable energy as renewable methane (synthetic natural gas) and coupling the electricity and gas networks to create the smart green super grid.
Read more- 12
- May
2011
Alexander Krajete pitches Bio Power Storage Cleantech Startup Greenthitan
Alexander Krajete, Founder and CEO of Krajete GmbH (formerly known as Greenthitan), pitches his 3G bio fuel cleantech startup to investors at ECO11. The business idea of Krajete is biological power storage as natural gas. Alexander produces CH4 (methane gas) and H2O (water) out of CO2 (carbon dioxide) and 4H2 (hydrogen) using a biological transformation process called methanation (methanogenesis) performed by Archaea. Methanation is a key technology in the new Power to Gas market.
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