- 6
- 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- 9
- August
2013
Smart green lean startup panel with Cleantech Invest, Savosolar, Wellington Partners, Icos Capital and Ben Energy
Ecosummit TV: Tarja Teppo (Cleantech Invest) moderates the smart green lean startup panel at ECO13 Berlin featuring Jari Varjotie (Savosolar), Bart Markus (Wellington Partners), Peter van Gelderen (Icos Capital) and Jan Marckhoff (Ben Energy). Given that most cleantech startups are capital- and time-intensive, we believe that the lean startup philosophy is the right medicine. Lean startup is all about resource efficient product development with fast iterations to achieve product market fit without wasting too much time and money. While lean startup works well for software startups, the question is whether it can also be applied to hardware startups. For the strategy discussion between the startup management and their VCs, lean startup also means to take smart make or buy decisions to maintain focus and, for example, outsource manufacturing or distribution to reduce CAPEX and OPEX. During an inspiring discussion, our panelists share their experience with being lean while being clean.
Read more- 6
- August
2013
Jari Varjotie pitches Savosolar from Finland
Ecosummit TV: Jari Varjotie pitches Savosolar from Finland at ECO13 Berlin. The cleantech startup develops and manufactures very efficient solar thermal absorbers and collectors that are based on patented optical nano coating. In fact, Savosolar claims to be the most efficient solar collector in the field and over 30 customers are a pretty good market proof. Savosolar is backed by Cleantech Invest and currently raises a new round of €4M of which €2M will be public funding. Break-even is planned for 2014 and we believe Savosolar to be an attractive investment opportunity with a nice risk return profile given the advanced development stage of the Finnish startup. Go for it, the sun rises in the north.
Read more- 24
- March
2013
Tarja Teppo pitches Cleantech Invest from Finland
Ecosummit TV: Tarja Teppo pitches the Helsinki-based early stage VC Cleantech Invest. Their portfolio currently consists of 11 smart green startups including Savosolar, Enercomp, One1 and Swap.com. As home markets are rather small, Scandinavian cleantech startups go international very quickly and are very interested in foreign investors, partners and customers. Cleantech Invest is part of the Vigo Accelerator of the Finnish government which provides €1M grant money to early stage startups to leverage the VC investment. Tarja’s ambitious goal is to create a large evergreen cleantech fund by doing an IPO. We are proud to have Tarja as Ecosummit Advisor and look forward to promoting the best startups from the Nordics.
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