One impressive line-up of future Norwegian cleantech stars
Norwegian Cleantech Award - a story in progress...
To be honest, the Norwegian Cleantech Award got off to a rocky start. It is an initiative we do together with Statkraft, Investinor and Innovation Norway where five selected finalists will present their cases at the upcoming Cleantech Capital Day in Oslo. The aim is to find and highlight the Norwegian early stage companies with high growth potential and the winner gets a cash award and free services from the sponsors.
We did our usual marketing but did not get many applicants in at first. A little nervous about this fact (to say the least) we started making calls to key incubators, networks and seed investors as well as directly to the companies we knew we wanted to have in. It took a while before we realised that a. We had a max of 500 000 EUR in previous investments for the companies to be eligible. This, we learned, is not a lot for a Norwegian seed stage company to have attracted, and b. It takes a phone call to explain who they will meet at an event like this.
We explained what type of audience they would present to, how the application criteria was to be interpreted (friends and family is not included) and raised the bar to 1 million EUR. Pretty soon, the phone marketing was paying off and the applications started coming in. One week later, 27 applicants had submitted very detailed and extremely well prepared applications.
We went through them all yesterday. The applications go through the business idea, the market, the team and the technology in some detail. Now, this must sound like a cliché but it is true nevertheless, these companies all come off as very high growth potential companies. I am not saying they will not have obstacles, but:
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
We did our usual marketing but did not get many applicants in at first. A little nervous about this fact (to say the least) we started making calls to key incubators, networks and seed investors as well as directly to the companies we knew we wanted to have in. It took a while before we realised that a. We had a max of 500 000 EUR in previous investments for the companies to be eligible. This, we learned, is not a lot for a Norwegian seed stage company to have attracted, and b. It takes a phone call to explain who they will meet at an event like this.
We explained what type of audience they would present to, how the application criteria was to be interpreted (friends and family is not included) and raised the bar to 1 million EUR. Pretty soon, the phone marketing was paying off and the applications started coming in. One week later, 27 applicants had submitted very detailed and extremely well prepared applications.
We went through them all yesterday. The applications go through the business idea, the market, the team and the technology in some detail. Now, this must sound like a cliché but it is true nevertheless, these companies all come off as very high growth potential companies. I am not saying they will not have obstacles, but:
- surprisingly many had come far in customer contacts,
- more or less all applicants had impressive business cases with high innovation levels and fairly good barriers to competition,
- and most importantly the teams impressed us 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
Alexander Lidgren,
Cleantech Scandinavia
Cleantech Scandinavia
Check out the entire program and register at http://www.cleantechscandinavia.com/event