My guess is that one of the Finnish technology breakthrough companies for 2010 will be Canatu’s team, lead by CEO David Brown. Canatu produces and sells a new class of versatile carbon-based components to OEMs and brand names. These components are based on carbon nanotubes and a novel NanoBud nanomaterial. The key competitive advantages of Canatu’s components include low cost, high performance and a diminished environmental footprint for optical and electrical devices. For instance, Canatu’s components are 25 times stronger than steel, 1000 times more conductive than copper and heat twice as well as diamond. The environmentally friendly aspect covers both the production and recycling process. And finally, the production of these components can be industrially scaled. Continue reading »
Päivi Kangasmäki
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Canatu: The Next Finnish Technology Breakthrough?
MHG Bioenergy ERP Rules & Monitors The Complex Biomass Supply Chain
Global plans to increase the amount of renewable energy will boost the growth of the biomass industry in the coming years. MHG System has developed an open and real-time enterprise resource planning system for biomass/forest energy management. It is a tool targeted at the management and optimization of the complex biomass supply chain. The system is designed for fuel suppliers, energy utilities and related harvesting,chipping & transport contractors and subcontractors.
The solution, MHG Bioenergy ERP service and map service solution, was commercialized in 2008. The service can be used via a web browser or mobile dvices. Customer solutions are created from MHG’s ERP independend building blocks and delivered as a turnkey solutions – or the service can be used on an ASP basis. The key competitive edge of the ERP tool is based on feed stock quality but it also allows customers to monitor moisture and energy content with a novel technology.
Voxstone: Set Up The Global VoxTrac Sales Network in 2010
Voxstone CEO Tommi Peltomäki was invited to pitch in Lahti last week. Voxstone, a spin-off from VTT has developed and patented VoxTracs , which are acoustic measuring devices that accurately monitor gas flows in industrial applications. VoxTrac (in the picture) can also make measurements in difficult conditions, which existing electronic technologies cannot do realiably. In addition to making it possible to optimize the biogas production process, proper monitoring can also lead to energy savings. When used to measure and optimize compressed air production in industrial facilities, the energy costs savings can be €10 – 20k annually. Tommi and his team have been developing the product since 2008. Their next step is to set up a sales network in the EU, Asia and the USA to accelerate revenue growth with a target of increasing net profits by 30% – 40% by 2011. Continue reading »
The Finnish Cleantech Market In 2010
Recently, we have seen increasing investor interest in the Finnish cleantech market, which closed a total of €40-50m worth of investments in Q3 including those in companies such as European Batteries, a large scale lithium ion battery manufacturer, Nokia spin-off There Corporation, a sub/smart metering technology provider, and Preseco, a waste-to-energy company. Investments in Finnish clean technologies represented around 50% of cleantech VC investments in the Nordics, which closed a total of €100m worth of investments (source: Cleantech Scandinavia). Examples of Nordic investments are in companies like Danish biomass fuelled engine technology provides Stirling, Swedish nanowire semiconductor LED developer Glo (a link to release), Norwegian solar cell manufacturer Innotech Solar and EV company Think Global.
But will the investments in Finnish clean technologies in 2010 exceed those for 2009? We do not know the final figures for 2009 yet. In 2008, Finnish cleantech companies posted a total of €139.5m in investments, which represented the highest proportion (37%) of total investments (€372m) in all Nordic countries.
MetGen: Several Projects In Pipeline For $2bn Industrial Enzyme Market
By chance, I have met recently several Finnish companies operating in the new but growing cleantech segment of industrial enzymes for biowaste-to-energy applications. Enzymes are proteins that catalyze chemical reactions and that can be used as new materials for renewable energy solutions. The global industrial enzyme market is currently valued at $2bn with an annual growth rate of 3-5%, which is fairly moderate. However, the large M&A transactions increase the attractiveness of this segment. Examples of transactions in this area include, for instance, the buy-out of Indian Biocon’s food industry enzymes unit by Novozymes for $115m in 2007 (story) and also the merger of US-based Celunol and Diversa in 2007 (story). Continue reading »
Cleantech Invest VIGO: A New Venture Accelerator In Finland!
Vigo, the start-up venture accelerator programme, is continuing with its fourth venture accelerator.
The Ministry of Employment and the Economy in Finland accepted Cleantech Invest into its Vigo accelerator program. The new cleantech start-up accelerator will provide funding for early-stage ventures and create growth stories by combining cleantech expertise, industrial know-how and capital. Cleantech Invest Vigo is lead by managing partner Ismo Rautiainen, accompanied by Cleantech Invest founders Tarja Teppo (in picture) and Timo Linnainmaa. The team estimates that most of the Finnish deal flow will come from the clean energy area. The other promising sectors in Finland in terms of deal flow include energy efficiency, new materials related to energy technologies, recycling and waste management solutions. Continue reading »
First In Europe: EB Starts Large Lithium-Ion Battery Manufacturing
Last month European Batteries (EB) celebrated the opening of its doors. Phase one of the project will cost close to €40m, which is a very high figure for a startup in Finland. The company was founded in 2008 as a spin-off from FEVT (later on, in September 2009, FEVT merged back into EB). European Batteries produces large format lithium-ion battery systems for energy, industrial and vehicle applications with a range of 3 kWh up to 1 MWh in size.
I had the pleasure of a telephone conversation with EB’s new CEO Jukka Koskinen, former CEO of the Finnish company Ensto Oy, last week regarding the issues behind the chosen strategy to be a vertical battery system manufacturer (meaning that EB operates the whole production process from cells to complete system, allowing full control over the quality of the products).
EB’s business model is clever: the demand for end-products, the large format lithium-ion battery systems, is based on cost-efficient, long-lasting and safe energy storage solutions. The energy content (Wh/kg) of lithium-ion batteries is about three times that of lead-acid batteries and double that of nickel-based batteries. The key customer group during the first phase is the transportation industry, EV car and delivery van producers. Continue reading »
Biogas Feed-In Tariff Kicks Biower Onto A Growth Path
Finland recently introduced the national goal of increasing the share of renewable energy to 60 per cent of total energy consumption. That is okay but the most important fact I think, is that Finland will finally introduce a set of financial and tax incentives to promote the development and piloting of clean technologies. It is time to walk the talk. For Finnish startups, it is essential to have opportunities for pilot references in their home market to enable further growth abroad.
Finland’s plan to introduce a biogas feed-in tariff is moving forward: the target price for the biogas feed-in tariff is €83.5 per MWh for power production and €50 per MWh when utilizing CHP (combined heat and power). According to the plan, this would only concern plants that produce more than 300 KVA of electricity. This supports fairly large plant sizes, which exceed the suggested parameters and provide adequate return on investments.
Continue reading »
Preseco And Pontos Target To Set Up A Fund For Customer Project Financing
Preseco closed around of €10m round including an equity investment by Pontos, a private equity investor and project financing arrangements with Atradius and Finnvera. In addition, Preseco and Pontos have begun strategic co-operation and are aiming to set up a fund for project finacing. This is a new and very innovative vehicle to resolve the issue of customer financing requirements of €10m-€20m per project – a typical sum for global environmental technology projects (press release). To close the transaction, Preseco announced the appointment of Risto J. Pönnö as their new CEO to speed up Preseco’s growth (press release). Continue reading »
How To Build A Successful Financing Strategy: From Seed Funding To A €120m Round?
Finnish wind turbine manufacturer WinWind raised €120 million in September 2008. Lassi Noponen, Chairman of WinWind at that time, agreed to share his experience building a successful investment strategy from the initial seed round to a successful exit.
During the early 90’s, Lassi worked for Neste Plc in various legal,technology and M&A positions and (with an MBA from London Business School)as VP and Group Controller at Neste. In the late 90’s he left Neste for investment banking and joined Evli Corporate Finance as a partner.
The story starts in the early 2000’s, when Lassi was co-founder and CEO at Proventia, a cleantech venture fund. Proventia made the first investment (of € 1 million) in WinWind’s first round. Later on, Lassi negotiated the later rounds with the Finnish pension fund Varma and Finnish Industry Investment. In 2006, Lassi managed the rounds with the Indian Siva Ventures as the Chairman of WinWind. Finally, he managed a €120 million round with Masdar of Abu Dhabi in 2008. Continue reading »
Cleantech Group Q3/09: Cleantech Now The Largest VC Investment Category
Cleantech venture investment continued its recovery in Q3 of 2009 according to preliminary results from the Cleantech Group. Following a rebound in Q209, the Q309 total is up a further 10 percent compared to the previous quarter but down 42 percent compared to Q3 of 2008 (press release).
The global stimulus money flowing into cleantech also boosted private investment in the sector. The cleantech investments in North America, Europe, China and India totalled $1.59b in Q309. Cleantech is now the largest category for venture capital investment, eclipsing biotech and IT. According to the Cleantech Group, the sector already accounted for 27 percent of venture capital in the second quarter this year (see the graph above). Here is a link to the release. Continue reading »
AW-Energy Signs 3 Million Euros Contract With The EU Wave Project
AW-Energy, the Finnish wave energy developer we wrote about last week, has signed a €3m contract with the EU (press release). The contract itself includes a €3m grant agreement, which gives significant support to the demonstration project in the Portuguese waters. Continue reading »
Feed-in Tariff For Biogas To Be Introduced In Finland?
There has been talk a feed-in tariff for biogas (and wind) will finally be introduced in Finland. Biogas plants convert biological waste into energy and producer power, heat and/or fuel. The earning logic of a typical biogas plant is based on port fees, power & heat production and end-products like composting material. In Finland, the feed-in tariff for biogas plants has been on the environmental agenda since 2007.
According to the (as yet unconfirmed) rumours, the planned target price for the biogas feed-in tariff is 83.5 euros per MWh for power production (which equals the planned feed-in tariff for wind power in Finland) and around 30-40 euros per MWh for heating. In this system, a biogas producer is assured a certain long term (15-20 years) guaranteed price. We do not yet know if there are plans to introduce feed-in tariffs for other biogas-based fuels, for example those used to run motor vehicles.
AW-Energy Launching Pilot Wave Project in Portugal
AW-Energy, the Finnish wave energy developer, is launching its pilot project in Peniche (Portugal) in October this year. The goal of the project is to demonstrate its Wave Roller technology on a significant scale, including the manufacture and deployment of the first grid connected 300 kW WaveRoller unit. The deployment, which has a one year test period, is scheduled for the summer of 2011.
“The key difference between the demonstration unit and commercial scale unit is the nominal capacity. The demo focuses on validating our results from the prototype testing, CFD simulations and tank testing.” explains John Liljelund, the new CEO of AW-Energy. “After the demon Continue reading »
There Steps Into Smart Grid And Closed EUR 4,5 Million First Round
There Corporation announced last week closing of a 4,5 million investment round from Power Fund II managed by VNT Management and the merger with the Comsel team from Vaasa (a link to press release).
There, located in Vaasa, Tampere and Helsinki, now employs a total of fifteen people, ten of which come from Nokia and Comsel with a stake in the company. The new CEO Kaj Rönnlund was hired outside. Continue reading »
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