- 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- 28
- April
2014
Christina di Sano pitches Smart Hydro Power
Ecosummit TV: Christina di Sano pitches Smart Hydro Power at ECO13 London. Founded in 2010, Smart Hydro Power develops a kinetic hydro power turbine that uses the movement of rivers to produce clean energy. The hydro power plants are targeted at offgrid communities that up to now had to rely on costly and dirty diesel generators. Their first product is a 5 KW turbine with built-in debris protection that costs €12.5K. Smart Hydro Power is backed by Ecapital and High-tech Gründerfonds and won the Ecosummit Award 2012 Gold medal. The German startup is currently fundraising and interested in talking to a new lead investor.
Read more- 20
- May
2013
Ecosummit Award 2013 – 43 nominees from 11 countries – application deadline ends tonight
Ecosummit TV: Last year, we ran our startup award for the first time. 52 nominees from 9 countries participated in the Facebook and jury voting. This Ecosummit TV video documents the award ceremony of 2012 and features BlaBlaCar, Carpooling.com and MyCO2 (Facebook winners) as well as Smart Hydro Power, Heliatek and Carpooling.com (jury winners). This year, the Ecosummit Award 2013 promotes 43 nominees from 11 countries that will be judged by the 33 members of our expert jury. If you want to join the smart green startup race, hurry up, because the application deadline ends tonight at 24:00, Berlin time.
Read more- 16
- September
2012
Call for cleantech startups to pitch at Ecosummit Düsseldorf 2012
We call all cleantech startups to pitch at Ecosummit Düsseldorf 2012 on 14-15 November at the Langen Foundation, Germany’s most beautiful private museum designed by Japanese architect Tadao Ando. ECO12 Düsseldorf is our 4th international conference and brings together startups, VCs, corporates and utilities to accelerate smart green innovation. So far we confirmed 15 sponsors and 43 speakers including 26 startups. Startups can win a free 8-minute pitch and get in front of Europe’s leading cleantech VCs and Corporate VCs. Please apply by sending us your investor presentation as soon as possible, application deadline is 7 November 2012. Bonus: All startups at ECO12 Düsseldorf get the Autodesk Product Design Suite Ultimate Edition for free.
Read more- 16
- July
2012
Algae startup Subitec raises €4.5 Million Series A from eCapital, Fraunhofer, HTGF and KfW
The upcoming German algae startup scene celebrates its first venture capital investment. The lucky startup is Stuttgart-based Subitec that successfully closed its Series A financing round led by eCapital. Subitec’s algae factories consist of patented vertical photobioreactors that use little space and energy while producing high yield. CEO Peter Ripplinger who pitched Subitec at Ecosummit Berlin 2011 wants to use the fresh money to grow the team, expand the lab and pilot facilities and internationalise the business. The main target market is the US where the demand for innovative algae technologies is the strongest.
Read more- 14
- May
2012
Smart Hydro Power raises €2.7 Million Series A from eCapital
Smart Hydro Power successfully closed their Series A financing round raising €2.7M from the German Cleantech VC eCapital which values the startup at €8.4M premoney. The seed investor High-Tech Gründerfonds converted their loan in this round. As Smart Hydro Power also won the Ecosummit Jury Award 2012 convincing our 53 judges, this milestone is a welcome opportunity to interview the CEO Karl Kolmsee and his investors about the deal and the prospects of this unique young company. Moreover, this deal proves that we continue to bring the best smart green startups onto our Ecosummit stage. To celebrate, we are happy to publish Karl’s fantastic ECO12 pitch on Ecosummit TV just in time for this story.
Read more- 12
- May
2012
Erwin Burth Presents Autodesk Cleantech Partner Programme At ECO12 Berlin
Ecosummit TV: Erwin Burth manages business development for Autodesk in Europe in the cleantech industry. Autodesk was founded 30 years ago, is a public company with a market cap of $8.2B and plays a pivotal role in the Smart Green Economy when it comes to designing smart green products. At ECO12, Erwin presents Autodesk’s design philosophy and its powerful design software solutions for the physical world. Autodesk believes that all problems can be solved with the help of intelligent design. In fact, that’s exactly what every cleantech startup building hardware needs. Autodesk is a very generous corporate and offers free software with a value of up to €120K to cleantech startups. Many Ecosummit startups are already a member of the Autodesk Cleantech Partner Programme such as Smart Hydro Power that won the Ecosummit Jury Award 2012. I strongly recommend that you apply asap.
Read more- 26
- March
2012
Smart Hydro Power, Heliatek and Carpooling.com win Ecosummit Award 2012
Smart Hydro Power (Gold, €7.500), Heliatek (Silver, €5.000) and Carpooling.com (Bronze, €2.500) win the Ecosummit Award 2012 Jury Voting. The German startup Smart Hydro Power convinced the expert jury which consisted of 53 judges representing smart green VCs, corporates, utilities, startups, press and service providers. Smart Hydro Power produces small power plants for rivers that generate renewable hydro energy for offgrid communities in developing countries. Organic PV startup Heliatek wins the Silver medal for taking solar energy where it has never been before. Carpooling.com is awarded the Bronze medal for their success with bringing ride sharing to the mass market. The winners of the Ecosummit Award 2012 Facebook Voting are Blablacar (Gold), Carpooling.com (Silver) and MyCO2 (Bronze). The Ecosummit Award 2012 is sponsored by Ecosummit and Climate-KIC with special media support of Wirtschaftswoche. Thanks a lot to all our nominees, judges, sponsors, partners and winners. We are proud of you!
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