- 29
- November
2017
SET Ventures announces Limejump investment at Ecosummit London
It is our common goal to build big startups that have big impact. Co-investing strengthens the investor syndicate and enables startups to grow faster. Following this goal, Amsterdam-based SET Ventures announces their new investment in Limejump at Ecosummit London. ECO17 London took place last week at the magnificent LSO St Luke’s, attracted 140 participants and presented 38 startups, most of them actively fundraising. In fact, SET Ventures transfers another €3M to Limejump doubling their Series A which was led by Statkraft Ventures in July. This is the first co-investment of SET Ventures and Statkraft Ventures but it may not be their last one given that they have the same investment strategy and different competences and networks.
Read more- 22
- May
2017
EcoIntense rounds up 22 million euro cash injection
One Peak Partners and Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital are on board. Together, the private equity firms invest 22 million euros in Berlin-based EcoIntense. The late stage software startup has been cashflow positive since 2012 and even debt free since 2014. But “it’s almost like an old saying: you should have a financing round, when you don’t need any cash,” Markus Becker, Co-founder of EcoIntense explained his reason for raising capital anyhow.
Read more- 26
- April
2017
ONZO: Treating home energy like high finance
ONZO’s cloud-based analytics are powering into domestic energy markets. Emerging from the buzzing London tech scene in 2007, the company first focused on hardware, creating a clip-on power meter with wireless display. However, in 2012 the rapid roll out of smart meters led them to sell off the hardware business to Scottish utility SSE. Steven Daniels, one of the private equity investors, took the reins as CEO and the company re-started as a pure energy analytics company floating in the cloud.
Read more- 2
- April
2017
Visedo is the rising star of the Finnish cleantech scene
To get out of fossil fuels and enable a global energy transition all industries must be electrified and powered by renewable energy. Founded in 2009 in Lappeenranta, the high-tech epicentre of Finland’s Far East, Visedo is an early mover when it comes to electrifying marine vessels such as ferryboats and barges and heavy duty vehicles and machines used in mining, construction and transport. Visedo makes customised electric propulsion systems to convert vessels and vehicles to fully electric or hybrid machines with zero or low emissions. After raising a €13.5M Series C in December 2016 from Emerald, VNT Management, Sinituote, Tesi, Green Campus Innovations and others, Visedo is now the rising star of the Finnish cleantech scene enjoying sustainable traction.
Read more- 5
- December
2016
Lilium raises €10M Series A from Atomico to commercialise its electric VTOL jet
On-demand urban air transportation is the next big thing according to Daniel Wiegand, CEO and Co-Founder of Lilium. The German aviation startup develops an electric VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) aircraft called Lilium jet since 2015. Today, Atomico invests €10M Series A and Niklas Zennström joins the board. Daniel and his team of 35 employees have the vision to make urban aviation electric, silent and available for everyone with the help of airtaxis and other aviation services. Uber also shares the vision that urban mobility should go vertical and is already working on matching pilots and passengers that want to bypass street-level congestion and traffic jams. In October 2016, the Californian mobility giant unveiled Uber Elevate in a 97-page must-read whitepaper. It would be no surprise if they soon co-invested in Lilium as übercool VTOL jets are the missing link to launch Uber in the air.
Read more- 8
- November
2016
Statkraft Ventures teams up with ETF Partners and leads $5M Series A in Greenbird from Norway
Ubiquitous smart meters are a key infrastructure component for the smart green utilities of the future because they generate a lot of valuable data and enable new energy services and dynamic pricing. In fact, it is a surprise that smart meter rollouts happen rather slowly in most countries due to slow regulators and hesitant utilities that are not yet ready to make substantial upfront investments in millions of smart meters that may bring more economic benefits to consumers than to the utilities themselves. Luckily, the Nordic countries and their resident startups have a headstart. Today, Düsseldorf-based corporate VC Statkraft Ventures leads the $5M Series A in Greenbird teaming up with London-based ETF Partners who were on the top of their potential co-investor list. The Norwegian energy IoT startup is Statkraft’s second investment this year after DEPsys from Switzerland in June.
Read more- 11
- October
2016
SET Ventures announces investment in Energyworx at Ecosummit London 2016
Our smart green innovation community is making more deals and sharing breaking news at Ecosummit. During today’s ECO16 London presentation, Rene Savelsberg announces the new investment of SET Ventures in Energyworx, the Dutch software provider for energy data analytics and management for utilities. SET Ventures joins the existing investor HenQ to complete Energyworx’ Series A in which both VCs co-invested a couple of million Euros and made additional capital reserves for follow-on investments. Energyworx is the first investment since the Amsterdam-based smart energy VC reached the first closing of SET Fund II at €60M in February 2016. With the software skills of HenQ and the energy experience and network of SET Ventures Energyworx is now poised to accelerate its growth and win new utility customers in Europe and America.
Read more- 13
- May
2016
Climate-KIC showcases Coolar, Prosumergy, MotionTag, Pendula and Orkess at ECO16 Berlin
Ecosummit TV: Malte Schneider presents the Climate-KIC startup showcase at ECO16 Berlin. Since 2012, Climate-KIC Germany partners with Ecosummit and, since 2013, they showcase 5 startups each year that are currently supported by the Climate-KIC Accelerator, Europe’s largest cleantech accelerator. In 2016, Coolar, Prosumergy, MotionTag, Pendula and Orkess went on stage to deliver high-quality pitches and their Ecosummit TV videos are embedded below. Over the years, Climate-KIC has become a very important smart green dealflow source for angels and early stage investors. Congrats to the Climate-KIC team for the great work they do to foster smart green startups in Europe.
Read more- 3
- May
2016
Kiwigrid, Mobisol, Kebony, Lumenaza, BEN Energy and Electrochaea win Ecosummit Award 2016 in Berlin
Ecosummit TV: Ecosummit’s mission is to accelerate smart green startups, investors and corporates with our events and Ecosummit TV. In fact, we accelerated our video production, too, and already uploaded 20 videos mixed live at ECO16 Berlin to YouTube. Last week, 250 happy participants temporarily populated the Radialsystem and enjoyed an amazing conference that was packed with lots of business and investment opportunities. In the evening of the first conference day, 26 April 2016, we announced the 6 new winners of the Ecosummit Award 2016. 58 nominees from 13 countries created public startup profiles on Ecosummit Market and were judged by 43 judges during the online voting before the conference. The 3 ECO16 Award winners in the late stage startup category (> €2M revenues 2015) are: Kiwigrid winning Gold and €1.5K prize money, Mobisol receiving Silver and €1K and Kebony scoring Bronze and €500. The 3 ECO16 Award winners in the early stage startup category (< €2M revenues 2015) are: Lumenaza winning Gold and €1.5K prize money, BEN Energy earning Silver and €1K and Electrochaea collecting Bronze and €500. Congrats to all the winners for convincing our judges that your smart green startup rocks.
Read more- 26
- April
2016
Inven Capital announces €20M investment in Tado at Ecosummit Berlin 2016
Ecosummit TV: Our smart green innovation community is making deals and sharing breaking news at Ecosummit. During their ECO16 Berlin presentation, Petr Mikovec and his Inven Capital team announce their €20M investment in Tado, one of the fastest-growing smart green startups in Germany. The Munich-based late stage startup provides climate control services to households by controlling heating and air conditioning systems. Tado was founded in 2011, pitched at Ecosummit Berlin 2012 for the first time and grew their team to 100 employees. Inven originally contacted Tado in 2015 and wanted to join the last round but it was too late. Eager to get into the deal, Inven today invests alone at a higher valuation than Tado’s last financing round of €15.2M in October 2015. The existing shareholders Siemens Venture Capital, Statkraft Ventures, Target Partners, Shortcut Ventures and BayBG did not participate again and accepted dilution. Christian Deilmann, CEO of Tado, comments: “We currently have a lot of traction growing at 400% annually in 12 European markets, USA and Singapore. Although we are well-funded thanks to our last round in autumn 2015, Inven Capital presented a great opportunity to strengthen our position in Central and Southeastern Europe and further accelerate our growth and innovation leadership. Our goal is an IPO in a couple of years.”
Read more- 20
- March
2016
Smart green angel Frank Thelen invests in Lilium Aviation to fly an electric plane
Ecosummit TV: Electric aviation is the future of aviation. Co-Founder and CEO Daniel Wiegand pitched Lilium Aviation at ECO15 London on 6 October 2015. On 7 March 2016, the famous German smart green angel Frank Thelen invested in Lilium Aviation buying 15% of the company. The Munich-based startup is supported by Climate KIC and develops an electric plane that can take off and land vertically due to tiltable electric engines. The plane has a beautiful design, will travel at 400 km/h and achieve an all-electric range of 500 km. The first manned flight is planned in 2016 and the commercial rollout starts in 2018. The Lilium jet costs €300K and can already be pre-ordered online – Tesla style. We think Lilium Aviation is one of the hottest and most innovative smart green startups in Europe. For sure, Elon Musk will love it, too.
Read more- 12
- January
2016
Fast-growing solar e-commerce startup Greenergetic attracts investment from RWE
Ecosummit TV: Selling PV systems online is a great business idea for a smart green startup. You can grow at Internet speed and drive the Energiewende by spreading renewable energy. If you want to build your startup in a capital efficient way with a small burn rate, it is also a good idea to minimise your customer acquisition costs by adopting a B2B business model and working with distribution partners. This is exactly what CEO Florian Meyer-Delpho and his co-founders did in 2012 when they launched Greenergetic as a white label portal for utilities to sell PV systems to their customers. At ECO15 Berlin in May, Florian pitched Greenergetic to increase investor demand for their €2M financing round (see Ecosummit TV video below). On 15 December 2015, RWE Vertrieb, the German sales company of RWE with 4 million customers and €12B revenues, announced their minority investment in Greenergetic. While the terms of the deal are undisclosed, we assume that Florian managed to raise a bit more than he was looking for given that Greenergetic expected €5M revenues in 2015.
Read more- 13
- October
2015
Skeleton Technologies, Solarkiosk and Grundgrün win ECO15 London Award
Ecosummit London 2015 was our third conference at the Crystal and it turned out to be our best conference so far in the smart green capital. 160 happy and relaxed participants came together on 6-7 October 2015 to enjoy 46 startup pitches from all over Europe and celebrate smart green innovation. Our panel about fostering the cooperation between impact investors and VCs to tap into new sources of capital for smart green startups received a lot of applause – as did the panels about early stage, late stage and corporate venturing. To further grow next year we are moving Ecosummit London 2016 to CodeNode in the heart of Tech City and concentrate the action on 11 October 2016. Moreover, we announced Ecosummit Berlin 2016 on 26-27 April 2016 at the Radialsystem and Ecosummit Amsterdam 2016 on 7 July 2016 at Rockstart. During our high-speed ECO15 London Award ceremony on 6 October 2015 we announced the 3 winners Skeleton Technologies, Solarkiosk and Grundgrün.
Read more- 27
- July
2015
Andreas Spiess pitches Solarkiosk at ECO15 Berlin
Ecosummit TV: Andreas Spiess pitches Solarkiosk at ECO15 Berlin. The Berlin-based smart green startup operates Solarkiosks designed by Graft in emerging markets and targets people living in offgrid communities at the Base-of-the-Pyramid (BoP). By the end of 2015, 200 Solarkiosks will be online in 7 countries in Africa (Ethiopia, Kenya, Botswana, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ghana and Nigeria). Founded in 2011, Solarkiosk has got over 60 employees, raised more than €10M and will be fundraising in 2016 looking for the best impact investors and VCs that believe in the tremendous business opportunities in emerging markets. Solarkiosk’s ultimate goal are 300.000 Solarkiosks in Africa, Asia and South America. Solarkiosk is one of the most exciting startups in Europe and a superb impact investment opportunity.
Read more- 22
- May
2015
Sonnenbatterie, Sunfire, Thermondo, Agrilution, Ubitricity and Bettervest win the Ecosummit Award at ECO15 Berlin
Ecosummit Berlin 2015 was our best event so far – in terms of product quality, customer feedback and revenues. 250 super happy participants came to the Radialsystem on 19-20 May 2015 and were blown away by our unique mix of smart green people, superb conference location, fresh air on the Spree terrace, long networking breaks, tasty food, delicious wine, onsite parties with funky DJs and live act as well as a packed agenda that we ran through on time – for the first time since 2010. The secret of time keeping is collective discipline fostered by a speaker clock that is also visible to the moderator and skipping questions from the audience. During our award ceremony on 19 May 2015, we announced the 6 smart green startups winning the Ecosummit Award 2015.
Read more- 7
- May
2015
Frédéric Mazzella pitches BlaBlaCar
Ecosummit TV: Co-Founder and CEO Frédéric Mazzella pitches BlaBlaCar at ECO14 London and explains in every detail how they disrupt mobility and build a fast-growing global startup. If you want to grow fast, you have to postpone profit and invest everything in managing growth with a flexible strategy how to enter new markets. Sharing corporate values with existing and new employees is a key success factor. Founded in France in 2004, BlaBlaCar reached 1 million members in 2011 and 10 million members in September 2014. In July 2014, Index Ventures and Accel Partners co-lead the Series C and injected $100M. In April 2015, BlaBlaCar acquired Carpooling.com, their strongest competitor in Germany. Frédéric believes that long distance ride sharing is very different from city-focused Uber as the average trip matched by BlaBlaCar is 300 km. However, this competitive situation may change in the future and that’s why BlaBlaCar keeps on accelerating. This is a must-see video for every smart green startup and their investors.
Read more- 7
- May
2015
Taavi Madiberk pitches Skeleton Technologies at ECO14 London
Ecosummit TV: At ECO14 London, Taavi Madiberk gives an update on Skeleton Technologies from Estonia and teases investors to join their Series B which is still open as of today. Since Taavi’s first pitch at ECO12 Berlin, Skeleton made a lot of progress and raised €11.6M in equity and grants. The main investor so far is UP Invest from Estonia. Skeleton makes ultracapacitors that are special purpose batteries with very high power density and 1 million cycles but lower energy density compared to lithium-ion batteries. A typical application is the start-stop function of a car. Now Skeleton has got over 30 employees and plans to open the first large-scale factory in Bautzen, Germany, with the help of Germany Trade & Invest. We think that Skeleton is one of the most promising smart green startups in Europe and are happy that Taavi will pitch again at ECO15 Berlin.
Read more- 15
- April
2015
Thermondo raises €6M Series B from Rocket Internet, Holtzbrinck Ventures, E.ON, IBB and Grey Corp
“We only raise as much capital as we need to reach the next company growth and valuation milestone,” says Thermondo‘s CEO Philipp Pausder. In fact, that’s a pretty smart fundraising strategy that ensures the founders do not sell off their company too quickly before substantial value has been created with the help of the current financing round. Today, the Berlin-based late stage startup announced their €6M Series B that they collected from Rocket Internet, Holtzbrinck Ventures, E.ON, IBB and Grey Corp. Thermondo sells heating systems online and dispatches internal teams from 12 cities to every corner in Germany to install the units at the customers’ premises. Learning from Solarcity, Thermondo decided a while ago to vertically integrate the installation process in order to manage it digitally and minimise process costs.
Read more- 15
- April
2015
Christoph Ostermann pitches Sonnenbatterie at ECO14 London
Ecosummit TV: Christoph Ostermann pitches Sonnenbatterie at ECO14 London. Since then a lot has happened to the famous solar storage startup from Bavaria. Just 2 days ago, Sonnenbatterie was chosen in New York as New Energy Pioneer 2015 by Bloomberg New Energy Finance. In December 2014, Sonnenbatterie raised €7.5M Series B from Munich Venture Partners, SET Ventures and Ecapital, bringing up the total capital raised to €10.5M. With 2014 revenues of €15M, Sonnenbatterie turns out to be very capital efficient. Moreover, a new management team was hired including COO Oliver Koch (Paramount Solar, acquired by Solarcity), CTO Hermann Schweizer and US Country Manager Boris von Bormann, a very smart and well connected German living on the West Coast for 25 years. In fact, Sonnenbatterie USA will officially launch at Intersolar San Francisco on 14-16 July 2015 and currently works on adapting their battery system to the local market and finding strong production and distribution partners. Christoph plans the Series C in 2016 and wants to bring in American co-investors while keeping the HQ in Germany for the foreseeable future.
Read more- 15
- April
2015
Smart green accelerator panel featuring Startupbootcamp, Climate-KIC, Rockstart and Swedish Energy Agency
Ecosummit TV: Accelerating smart green startups should be the key motivation for everybody working with startups on a day-to-day basis, not only accelerators, but also angels, VCs, corporates and service providers. At ECO14 Berlin, we discuss the art of faster startup development with Alex Farcet (Startupbootcamp), Franka Birke (Climate-KIC), Yme Bosma (Rockstart) and Bigge Lidgren (ex-Swedish Energy Agency, now Cleantech Invest). A typical accelerator programme lasts 90 to 180 days with intensive mentoring on product development, customer development, fundraising and team building. Private accelerators like Startupbootcamp and Rockstart follow the business model of investing €20K for 8% of equity at a rather low valuation. Then they work hard to create value, increase the startup’s valuation and attract follow-on investments. Public accelerators like Climate-KIC and Swedish Energy Agency usually do not take equity and rather provide grants and soft loans. A key challenge for all accelerators is to attract coachable founders that are, at the same time, very talented and skilled at building successful startups. Only then do the accelerators get returns on their investments.
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