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- 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
- September
2014
Eugen 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 more- 30
- July
2013
Philipp Schroeder pitches Sonnenbatterie from Bavaria
Ecosummit TV: Philipp Schroeder pitches Sonnenbatterie at Ecosummit Berlin 2013. The German cleantech startup is actually called Prosol Invest Deutschland but the brand they are building is Sonnenbatterie. The smart green product they make and sell like hotcakes is the Tesla of residential energy storage. The solar battery is a smart storage solution with a built-in smart meter that you connect to your PV system and the Internet to actively manage your local energy production and consumption. By using a mobile app the homeowner may easily decide whether to feed-in or consume the homemade electricity. Sonnenbatterie is backed by eCapital and their sales curve has the shape that makes VCs very happy. Founded in 2010, Sonnenbatterie launched in 2011 and has already got €15M in their order book in 2013, with 6 more months to go. At ECO13 Berlin, Sonnenbatterie won Ecosummit Award Jury Bronze in recognition of their business potential and milestones reached. We expect a busy phone line with calls from late stage cleantech VCs trying to get in.
Read more- 2
- April
2011
GreenPocket: 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.
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