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- March
2015
Jan Marckhoff pitches BEN Energy
Ecosummit TV: Jan Marckhoff pitches BEN Energy at ECO14 Berlin. The smart green startup enables customer intelligence and engagement for utilities and competes with Opower and Tendril. Being the market leader in Switzerland, BEN Energy recently entered the German market and already won a large customer and a powerful distribution partner. The founders successfully bootstrapped their spin-off from ETH Zurich to €1M annual revenues and are currently raising their first financing round. Jan will pitch again at ECO15 Berlin to change the way people experience energy.
Read more- 14
- September
2014
Gina Domanig chats with Jan Michael Hess about being a smart green VC
Ecosummit TV: Gina Domanig is a pioneer of cleantech venture capital. She got started in 2000 after a tempting call from a headhunter. Since then, Zurich-based Emerald Technology Ventures raised 3 funds and has got €370M of assets under management. Gina likes being a smart green VC because it is a multi-dimensional job involving technology, finance, industrial applications, transactions and, most importantly, lots of smart and inspiring people. It is also a tough job because you have to be available all the time for your portfolio and LPs. Gina travels almost every week, spends 50% of her time with the portfolio companies and the rest with investors, dealflow and fund management. In today’s environment, VCs have to be very involved in securing the ongoing financing of a startup, helping them recruit the best team and making the connections with the relevant corporates who may become customers, partners or even acquirers when it’s time for an exit. Next to the startups, the real customers of the VC are the investors. The majority of Emerald’s LPs are corporates whose key motivation for fund investments is fostering open innovation. There is a lot to learn from Gina and we are grateful that she joined ECO14 Berlin.
Read more- 30
- August
2013
Aaron Best and Franka Birke present the European startup accelerator Climate-KIC
Ecosummit TV: At Ecosummit Berlin 2013, Aaron Best and Franka Birke present Climate-KIC, the European initiative to foster cleantech entrepreneurship and education. Climate-KIC runs a startup accelerator that provides up to €95K, office space and coaching to young startups in Germany, UK, France, Switzerland and the Netherlands. They also organise master classes with famous startup gurus such as Steve Blank or Alexander Osterwalder. During the Climate-KIC session, Ingo Potthof (UnternehmerTUM Fund) interviewed Alexander Zosel (E-volo), Niels Beisinghoff (Bettertaxi), Philipp Pausder (Futurewatt), Philipp von Seherr-Thoss (Milk the Sun) and Martin Burkhardt (Boxtango). If you are an early stage startup or support startups with capital or industry expertise, you should definitely join the Climate-KIC network.
Read more- 28
- June
2013
Jan Marckhoff pitches Ben Energy from Switzerland
Ecosummit TV: Jan Marckhoff pitches Ben Energy at ECO13 Berlin. The Swiss startup is a spin-off from ETH Zurich and already provides their customer engagement solution to 17 utilities in Switzerland, covering 25% of the Swiss market. Being financed by the founders and customers so far, Ben Energy now looks for €1.2M Series A to increase their sales team in Germany and other new territories. Ben Energy competes with Opower that raised $65M and has got 400 employees. Comparing the two startups, it’s fair to say that the really lean startup comes from Switzerland. In my personal opinion, Ben Energy is a great investment opportunity for any cleantech VC who likes fast scalable business models that are capital-light and proven in the market. Opower may be their exit channel.
Read more- 25
- January
2012
Call for Ecosummit Ambassadors to join ECO12
Ecosummit Ambassadors are planetfriendly university graduates with international background who aim at a career in the Smart Green Economy to solve our global climate, resource and economic problems. The ECO12 organisers need 20 Ecosummit Ambassadors to support us before and during ECO12. We are grateful for your applications and selected 20 ambassadors coming from India, Malaysia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Sweden, Zimbabwe, USA, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Switzerland, Spain, Indonesia, Poland, UK and Germany. The deal is simple: As ambassador you get a free ECO12 ticket and work 50% of your time in important jobs such as registration, speaker management, networking angel, participant service, microphone runner and cloakroom. Please do not send further applicatiions. Now is a good time to meet our new ECO12 Ambassadors – your future teammates.
Read more- 21
- May
2011
Peter Stein pitches Thermoelectric Generator Startup GreenTEG at ECO11
Ecosummit TV brings to you Peter Stein, Co-Founder and Head of Sales and Finance of GreenTEG, pitching the Zurich-based thermoelectric generator startup to investors at ECO11 in Berlin. The amount of lost waste energy, especially as heat, mankind loses during power generation and industrial production is huge. GreenTEG has developed cost-efficient technology that turns waste heat into energy using thermoelectric generators.
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