Many cleantech companies are large scale companies who aim to work with the utilities, who require millions in investments for R&D, production facilities, and rolling out their product. Quickly one forgets about the smaller players, and one of those smaller players is Tuulivoimala, who develops and markets wind and solar power solutions to private customers, and who are quite successful with their venture.
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Being Self-Sustainable With Tuulivoimala.com
Sweden Puts Its Cleantech Into One Building
During the second half of 2009 Sweden held the EU Presidency, and the cleantech businesses of the country asked themselves: “How can we increase Swedish exports of Green Business?” Their solution was to collect companies in one building in downtown Stockholm, close to government offices and city hall, to allow Ministers, MPs, businesses and other interested people to have a look at what Sweden has to offer in cleantech.
A Couple Of Big Norwegians Close 2009 In Nordic Cleantech
Norwegian Investinor is already into the cleantech industry through investments in electric car-maker Think and Metallkraft (which is another cleantech fast-grower doing recycling in the solar industry). They opened their bank account before the holidays, investing 6.3 million euro in Innotech Solar, making it one of the bigger cleantech investments during the year. Innotech Solar was founded by people from within the solar industry, who saw a market opportunity in the solar cells that where not used due to low efficiency. Innotech Solar buys these cells and has the technology and production capacity to upgrade them, making them profitable. It is recycling and reuse in an industry where access to raw material has been crucial. The company was established in spring 2008, has grown to 42 employees, and already has sales offices in Germany and China. The company has previously managed to attract VC money from two of the most active cleantech investors in the Nordics – Northzone Ventures and Sustainable Technologies Fund.
Lars Aikala Of Valoya
Back in November we visited the Lahti Cleantech Venture Day where we had a chance to see a lot of different companies and people. One of the most interesting was Valoya. Valoya is a company working in an industry that most people wouldn’t consider especially sexy. They are developing professional lights for greenhouses with LED technologies. While this may sound boring to the average man on the street, take a minute to think about how your vegetables are grown these days. The business is huge and about one third of the costs of producing vegetables go into electricity.
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The World Gets Thinner With Beneq
It is nice to be able to write about positive growth stories for a Finnish SME in these times, especially if the company is located in the Cleantech sector and was just established in 2005. Beneq is located in Vantaa and during the Finnfacts Cleantech Blogger Tour 09 we went for a visit, where CEO Sampo Ahonen and Marketing Manager Joe Pimenoff gave us a presentation on what the company is about and also granted us a look at their products and premises.
John Liljelund Of AW-Energy
I talked with John Liljelund, the CEO of AW-Energy in Lahti, Finland a few weeks ago in the Cleantech Venture Forum. He discussed various aspects in how the company was founded and where they are at the moment with their product. Not only is the story behind the company very interesting, but he goes through in detail the different stages of investment the company has received including his own march to become the CEO of the company. AW-Energy develops a product called Waveroller which harnesses energy from the energy of the waves.
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Entrepreneurial And Management Skills A Must
Reporting live from the Lahti Cleantech Venture Day ‘09. The first impression is that there are lot of VCs around, which are looking to invest in Finland, and Scandinavia in general.
German, Dutch, and UK venture capitalists are present and willing to finance tickets between €1M up to €5M for first round investments. One VC on the panel commented that the economic crisis has created a lot of risk, which makes investing lucrative again – big risks, big pay-offs. The economic downturn has also made the cleantech sector more prominent and serious for investors. When you run out of money, it’s finally time to think!
While some governments have gone forward and created policies to support innovations in cleantech – feed-in tariffs and subsidies -the general feeling is that more needs to be done if the industry should remain attractive for investors and help start-ups to succeed in a market that, especially in the case of energy, is still dominated by a few big players.
While Finland and Scandinavia remain an interesting breeding ground for clean technologies, it’s generally agreed here that the cleantech sector is global. So while start-ups get going close to home, they realize that they need to get the money to go international quickly. VCs remarked that winners in the area have not materialized yet, or are being created right now. Both camps have one demand in common: entrepreneurial and management skills need to be present in the start-up -it’s not enough to just have a great product!
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