Five finalists selected for the Norwegian Cleantech Award

Background

The Cleantech sector in Norway is on the rise, and attracts great national and foreign interest. In 2009, out of the top 20 Nordic investment deals, no less than eight were Norwegian, including the largest investment. This development continues during the first quarter in 2010, with the top five investments being Norwegian. Will this success be repeated and even accelerated in the years to come? The Norwegian Cleantech Award aims to highlight the future cleantech success stories and give investors an early view of these rising stars.

The Award

The Award is presented by Cleantech Scandinavia, Statkraft, Investinor and Innovation Norway. The five finalists will present to an audience of Nordic and international investors at the Cleantech Capital day in Oslo 2nd of June. The audience will pick the final winner who will be awarded EUR 10 000 and a selection of free advisory services.

Criteria

The award was open to Norwegian cleantech companies that have to-date received less than EUR 1,000,000 (1 million) in external private financing. The jury consisted of:

Helle Moen, Investment Manager at Investinor;

Anne Worsøe, Head of New Business at Statkraft Development;

Bernhard Mohr, Senior Investment Manager at BASF Venture Capital;

Magnus Agerström, Co-founder and Managing Director of Cleantech Scandinavia; and

Ivar Singstad, Advisor in Energy and Environment at Innovation Norway

The selection criterion was growth potential, judged on the basis of information submitted by the applicants regarding the business idea, the market, the team and the technology.

The applicants

27 applicants submitted very detailed and extremely well prepared applications. The overall quality of applications was high, surprisingly many had come far in customer contacts, more or less all applicants had impressive and valid business cases with high innovation levels and fairly good barriers to competition, and most importantly the teams impressed with highly relevant experience of their target markets.

The Finalists

WindFlip AS: a Trondheim-based provider of offshore wind turbines transportation solution.
www.windflip.com

Kyoto Energy AS: develops solutions that allow affordable renewable energy production in the developing countries.
www.kyoto-energy.com

MemfoACT AS: developer of a new type of carbon membrane for various gas separation applications.
www.memfoact.no

Sorbwater Technology AS: a Bergen-based supplier of a novel process wastewater cleaning technology.
www.sorbwater.com

ECOsubsea AS: an Oslo-based developer of an environmentally conscious hull cleaning technology for seagoing vessels.
www.ecosubsea.com

For more info and to join the final event:

Magnus Agerström, Managing Director
magnus@cleantechscandinavia.com
+46 40 602 76 00

Svetlana Gross, Project Manager
svetlana@cleantechscandinavia.com
+46 73 940 20 81