Envelio raises €6M Series A from Ecapital, HTGF and Demeter
Today Envelio announced the successful closing of its €6M Series A led by Ecapital and joined by the existing investors HTGF and Demeter that both increased their share more than pro rata. Envelio is an Ecosummit startup as we like it. Co-founded in 2017 by 5 PhDs and researchers at RWTH Aachen, the German smart grid startup first pitched at ECO18 Berlin and then opened its Series A on 15 May 2019 on stage at Ecosummit Berlin. This was the start of 2 busy days for Envelio’s Founder CEO Simon Koopmann running through a myriad of hot VC meetings including the first deal flow conversation with Ecapital’s Hannes Schill.
Read moreKiwigrid raises Series C to build global energy IoT platform
Kiwigrid raises a double-digit million Euro Series C from Aqton, Stefan Quandt’s family office that also invested in Heliatek’s Series D, Innogy and LG Electronics to build a global energy IoT platform. The Dresden-based smart green startup won the ECO16 Gold Award in the late stage category and has got over 105 employees. High-Tech Gründerfonds, Germany’s largest seed investor with 80% public money, and Innogy Venture Capital, the old corporate VC fund of Innogy that is in its divestment period, sold their shares completely and celebrate a financial exit with positive returns.
Read moreStatkraft 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 moreSET 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 morePedro Miranda talks about the smart green city strategy of Siemens
Ecosummit TV: At ECO14 London, our second conference at the LEED Platinum-certified Crystal, our host Pedro Miranda presents the smart green city strategy of Siemens and its key drivers. Electrification, automation and digital transformation have got a huge impact on the business of the German corporate and its customers. In fact, the digital and physical world are merging to continuously create better and more resource efficient solutions taking advantage of the latest smart technologies. Many companies are working hard to be part of the Internet of Things. According to Pedro, digital growth is exponential and the amount of data generated by humans and machines doubles every 2 years. In smart green cities, smart buildings are connected to the smart grid while the energy and data flow bi-directionally from the producer to the consumer and back to the producer. At the Crystal, Pedro and his team know everything that’s going on thanks to the omniscient building management system they put in place.
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 moreEugen Mayer pitches Power Plus Communications
Ecosummit TV: Eugen Mayer pitches Power Plus Communications (PPC) at ECO13 London. The Mannheim-based late stage startup provides broadband powerline (BPL) communication systems in electricity networks and is very active in the smart grid and smart meter rollouts in Germany and UK, their 2 most important markets. Applications such as smart street lighting could communicate over PPC’s powerline technology, too. PPC is a fabless startup with 50 employees that is backed by Climate Change Capital, British Gas and Siemens Venture Capital. Power Plus Communications seems to be well positioned to benefit from the growing smart grid market and we are curious to see who will eventually buy this company.
Read moreEnernoc buys Entelios – did this cleantech exit happen too fast?
On 14 February 2014, Enernoc buys Entelios, Germany’s demand response pioneer. The Munich-based startup was founded in July 2010 by serial entrepreneurs Oliver Stahl, Tom Schulz and Stephan Lindner. With a holding period of 3 years since the first VC investment this is definitely a fast cleantech exit. But this exit may have happened too fast given that demand response is the killer app of the smart grid, a massive global market opportunity and a capital efficient option to accelerate the Energiewende (energy transition). In the end, smart demand wins over stupid supply even though it is hard to convince all market participants. And before we forget: congratulations to the Entelios team.
Read moreUrban 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 moreRolf Adam discusses critical infrastructure for the new energy system
Ecosummit TV: On 15 November 2012, the city of Munich experienced a power outage affecting 450.000 people, the first one in 20 years. Just in time Rolf Adam of Cisco goes on stage at Ecosummit Düsseldorf to discuss 6 megatrends affecting large and small utilities in their efforts to manage the critical infrastructure for the new energy system: economics, employees, resources, innovation, industry fragmentation and regulation. To be fit for the future, Rolf recommends that utilities take a system approach, embrace rapid innovation and align their business model with 2050 rather than betting the company on today’s industry setup.
Read moreBernard 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 moreRolf Adam explains Gridonomics – the energy strategy of Cisco
Ecosummit TV: Rolf Adam, Business Development Director Smart Grid and Utilties of Cisco in Europe, shares his thinking about the future of the smart grid and the Internet of things at Ecosummit Berlin 2012. Industry transitions don’t wait for anyone to happen. The energy industry is changing dramatically and utilities have to build a new energy platform to manage this disruptive change. Cisco calls its energy strategy Gridonomics and it’s about the future of the entire energy system combining technology, economics and policy.
Read moreStephan 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 moreJoerg Fabri of Allocate recommends a holistic business strategy for the energy turnaround
Ecosummit TV: Joerg Fabri, Managing Partner of the consulting firm allocate, talks about a holistic business strategy for the utilities to manage the energy turnaround (Energiewende). To implement the transformation to the clean energy system companies need to reallocate their 4 key corporate resources: capacities, capital, people and energy and materials. There is a new paradigm driven by energy efficiency which means that the former business model of megawatt growth will not work anymore. The smart green utility of the future has to become an allocation manager that learns how to better manage the increasing complexity in the supply side and the demand side.
Read moreTom Schulz presents how Entelios brings demand response to the market
Ecosummit TV: Tom Schulz, Co-Founder and COO of Entelios, pitches the German demand response management startup at ECO12 Berlin. According to the Smart Energy Demand Coalition, intelligent cooperation between consumption, transmission, distribution and generation acting as equal partners in the electricity market is at the heart of the smart grid. Entelios sits between the demand side and the supply side and balances both by aggregating and shifting electricity demand away from peak hours, or rather peak minutes.
Read moreHans Streng shares the emobility strategy of ABB
Ecosummit TV: Hans Streng, SVP and General Manager of EV Charging Infrastructure at ABB, sold Epyon, which was incubated by Yes!Delft, to ABB and summarises his startup experience: “The true nature of a cleantech startup is how you manage continuous fluctuations and disruptions. Business changes on a day-to-day basis. The closer you get to the Internet domain, the faster the changes come. The closer you move to the CAPEX domain, the bigger the changes are.” At ECO12 Berlin, Hans presents ABB’s emobility strategy and talks about working with a small startup team inside a big corporate.
Read moreECO11 Panel: Smart Green Utility of the Future
If we make energy more expensive, consumers and companies will make a big effort to save energy. At Ecosummit 2011, I moderated an expert panel about the Smart Green Utility of the Future. Panelists include (from left): Joerg Fabri (allocate), moderator Jan Michael Hess (Ecosummit), Andre Shortell (GP Bullhound), Robert Werner (Greenpeace Energy) and Rolf Adam (Cisco). A smart green utility offers 100% renewable energy and helps clients save energy with smart green services and transparent tariffs.
Read moreEcosummit TV – ECO11 – Thomas Schulz – Entelios
Thomas Schulz, Co-Founder and COO of Entelios, presents the concept of reducing peak power applying Demand Response in Smart Grids at ECO11. Serving utilities and commercial companies with demand response means reducing the amount of peak power needed by managing the energy behaviour of consumers and producers over the network. Founded in 2010, Entelios is the German copycat of Enernoc in the US that went public in 2007 and currently has a market cap of $424M.
Read moreGreenPocket: Starting up by Exploring the Smart Grid
Here’s an article of guest author Thomas Goette, CEO of the Green IT startup GreenPocket. Up to 2020, large utilities around the world will be investing billions in the so-called Smart Grid. This intelligent electric grid will significantly increase energy efficiency by sharing information between utilities and consumers. Based on this new sphere of data, the Cologne-based startup GreenPocket has developed a high-performing white-label platform for utilities – the Energy Expert Engine.
Read more