Christian Reitberger and Jan Michael Hess chat about smart green angel investing
Ecosummit TV: We need more smart green angels in Europe. At the same time, angels should get better at co-investing in smart green startups and creating value during the holding period. With this motivation Christian Reitberger and Jan Michael Hess chat about the art of smart green angel investing at ECO15 Berlin. Christian is a VC and angel at the same time. This double role is possible as Wellington Partners stopped doing new investments in resource efficiency and, as a result, there is no conflict of interest. While many angels stay in the background, Christian gets a lot of dealflow because there is a general shortage of early stage investors and many people just know him. During the last years, he made 12 angel investments including 1 exit and 1 write-off. His active portfolio contains Romo Wind and Electrochaea.
Read moreAlexander van Os pitches Yellow&Blue
Ecosummit TV: Smart green energy is the only way to go. The energy market is changing rapidly thanks to technological and business model innovation coming from all directions. This creates a lot of investment opportunities for smart green VCs such as Yellow&Blue. Funded with €40M by the Dutch utility Nuon (Vattenfall Group), the Utrecht-based VC looks for capital efficient startups that make the energy value chain cleaner and more flexible with a focus on smart grid and energy efficiency. Alexander van Os and his partners are famous for their successful exit of Entelios to Enernoc in February 2014. At ECO14 Berlin, Yellow&Blue showcased their portfolio company ROMO Wind that optimises the performance of wind turbines and is currently fundraising again.
Read moreSmart green dealflow: Ubitricity, Saperatec, Skeleton, Waste2Chemical, O-Flexx and Romo Wind
Financing cleantech startups is a tough game these days. You need a strong team, product market fit and, even better, customers and revenues. In this difficult market environment, it is a great pleasure to report that 6 smart green startups managed to raise new venture capital: Ubitricity (around €3.5M, Germany), Saperatec (€3.3M, Germany), Skeleton (€2.2M, Estonia), Waste2Chemical (undisclosed, Netherlands), O-Flexx (€2.4M, Germany) and Romo Wind (€4.8M, Switzerland). The active cleantech VCs include Earlybird, IBB, NRW Bank, HTGF, eCapital, Dutch Greentech Fund, Emerald, Yellow&Blue, ABB and b-to-v. Let’s take a closer look at the startups and their new investors.
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