Nordic Cleantech companies to pitch for US investors in Palo Alto, California

Press release Lund, 2011-11-03

Nordic Cleantech Showcase in California

On Thursday the 17th of November Cleantech Scandinavia and Nordic Cleantech Open will bring Nordic cleantech to California in grand style. At a Showcase in Palo Alto 11 Nordic cleantech companies will present their unique solutions in front of American investors. The goal is that this will lead to new investments into the Nordic cleantech sector. The odds for this happening are very good.

A very large share of the world’s venture capital is concentrated in a small area around the Stanford University area in Palo Alto, California. These venture capitalists are willing and able to take the risks of investing in seed stage companies. In the American venture capital market it is also common that several funds bid against each other to get to invest into promising companies. This is very unusual in Europe and leads to a significantly higher evaluation of the stock of the companies receiving funding. See below which Venture Capital funds have already registered to attend.

The Nordic cleantech sector is, thanks to a long history of environmental awareness and active environmental policies, one of the absolutely most notable in the world. This has recently been recognised more by international investors, as several international actors have lately become part owners in Nordic cleantech companies.

Nordic Cleantech Showcase in Palo Alto will bring together the American venture capital sector with the Nordic cleantech sector. We believe that there is much to gain in a closer contact between these, each separately world leading sectors.

Among the Venture Capital Funds that will be present at the Showcase are:

Sail Capital Partners, www.sailcapital.com

Chevron Technology Ventures, www.chevron.com

Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, www.kpcb.com

Mohr Davidow Ventures, www.mdv.com

Applied Materials, www.appliedmaterials.com

Silicon Valley Bank, www.svb.com

Cleantech Circle, www.cleantechcircle.com

CalCef, www.calcefangelfund.com

The companies to present in Palo Alto are:

Black Silicon Solar
Denmark
www.blacksiliconsolar.com

Black Silicon Solar develops a proprietary nanotechnology process for improving silicon solar cells in a cost-efficient way. By mainly focusing on reducing costs rather than improving the efficiency Black Silicon Solar has been able to develop an alternative texturing process that makes the overall production of solar cells 10% cheaper, reduces production times, use of toxic chemicals, and the amount of silicon used per cell. Black Silicon Solar is targeting the 50 billion dollar silicon solar market with the solar cell manufacturers as end-customers. These manufacturers are currently under severe financial pressure from Chinese competitors and cost-reducing technologies such as the Black Silicon Solar process will be crucial for their survival.

Ekolite
Finland
www.ekolite.fi

Ekolite converts “Waste to Value” when making composite materials from biomass and industrial wastes by means of mechanical and/or chemical activation. Manufacturing technology is very resource efficient. Ekolite is targeting to commercialize new modified biofuel ash based geopolymers for infrastructures and new natural fibre composites for thermal, acoustic and fire insulating materials. Primary areas of use are green buildings and infrastructures; secondarily the solutions can be used for transportation, energy production and forest industry renewal. New construction materials can improve energy efficiency, absorb noise and improve overall safety and comfort of living worldwide

Innowind
Norway
www.innowind.no

Innowind offers a “game change” in the wind industry. The product is an innovative windmill rotor system that utilizes both horizontal and vertical kinetic energy. The concept reduces the diameter on a windmill with 2/3rd while keeping the energy output. For offshore wind farms the solution can reduce the total cost with 30%. Firstly, based on the possibility to have multiple units installed on one fixed or floating offshore installation, secondly due to the reduced space requirement it will create reduction of installation and cable cost. It will also have easier maintenance, easier access, less noise, less visual impact and less installation activity.

Mantex
Sweden
www.mantex.se

Mantex provides measurement technology and products that fast and accurately simultaneously measure the key properties in organic materials in industrial production environments. Winner of the 2008 Swedish Cleantech Company of the Year Award, Mantex was also selected in 2010 and 2011 as one of the 33 most promising young Swedish technology companies. The Mantex technology enables companies in the forest and utility industries to increase production and reduce consumption of raw materials, chemicals and energy as well as cutting maintenance costs. All with the benefit of reduced environmental impact while at the same time improving financial performance.

Me-Mover
Denmark
www.me-mover.com

Me-Mover is offering the Next Step in urban motion- the Me-Mover. The Me-Mover is a personal transporter, a step machine on wheels or a green segway if you like. It is three wheeled, pedal driven and runs in bicycle speeds. Unlike a bicycle it folds in three seconds to a compact trolley that can be brought in a bus, a train, a metro etc. for free. The Me-Mover is also an excellent and ergonomic training tool - offering a full core workout when wanted. Above all the Me-Mover is fun to drive and has excellent manoeuvring abilities. There is really no describing the Me-Mover, you have to experience it yourself.

Netcycler
Finland
www.netcycler.com

Netcycler is a swap service for secondhand goods. Netcycler enables people to swap stuff they no longer need to things they want. For a single item posted online you may have up to thousands of trade opportunities – due to powerful automated trade rings. Best of all, you can get the items you want for free! An integrated shipping service brings convenience and facilitates long-distance trades. In March 2010, Netcycler was launched in Finland and has since been launched in Germany and the UK. There are already 80 000 Netcycler users and the user base is growing fast. 

Norsetek
Norway
www.norsetek.no

The Light Rotor is a innovative technology developed by Norwegian Norsetek. It includes a new structural arrangement for how to build large wind turbine rotors. This enables rotors to be lighter and larger so that they have a far better cost efficiency. The conventional three-bladed and cantilevered blade design was originally made for blade lengths of 8-10 meters. This design is today scaled up to 65 meters or more. The weight of the rotor then increases more than the energy harvested from the rotor area. The Norsetek technology can save up to 40% of material weight, significantly lowering costs related to material. The rotors are sectionable which enables easy transports of large wind turbines on roads and on the sea.

ReformTech
Sweden
www.reformtech.se

The flame free catalytic combustion in ReformTechs unique catalytic heaters provides several advantages such as high fuel efficiency without any dangerous emissions. Among other advantages with this exciting technology is, the possibility to use different fuels, a directionally controllable heat radiation, low costs and robust performance. The catalytic heaters from Reformtech can be utilized for example in automotive applications for engine and compartment heating, battery pre-heating, heating in mobile homes as well as for other applications where efficiency, signature and environmental impacts are vital to the user.

Vistvaen Orka
Iceland
www.vo.is

The LED based photobioreactor developed by Vistvaen Orka Inc is energy efficient and capable of achieving ultra-high bioproductivity from microalgae. By efficiently integrating photonics and biotechnology, the photobioreactor can increase the bioproductivity from microalgae manifold in comparison to current methods. The patent pending photobioreactor system is suitable for 24/7 biofixation of CO2 as well as for producing biomass from microalgae for fine chemicals and biofuels. As the photobioreactor is modular and scalable, it can easily be integrated into green building architecture.

WindSim
Norway 
www.windsim.com

WindSim is a modern wind farm design tool. It is a powerful, world-class software solution based on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) that combines advanced numeric processing with compelling 3D visualization in a user-friendly interface. WindSim helps customers optimize wind park layouts by identifying turbine locations with the highest wind speeds - but with low turbulence - to maximize production and design most efficient wind parks.

Yoga
Estonia
www.yogasystems.com

Yoga has developed an affordable building automation platform for Telecoms to bring easy-to-use fully intelligent building automation to masses. Yoga is a powerful tool for all buildings to achieve the most healthy indoor climate, highest security level and comfort in the most energy efficient way. Yoga works through a cloud system linking you with your home or office regardless of your location through a mobile phone, computer, or TV.

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