00:00Hello
00:05It's a great pleasure to be here with all of you today.
00:09My name is Elena Bou.
00:11I am co-founder and innovation director of a company called InnoEnergy.
00:18InnoEnergy is a company that we invest in early-stage startups
00:24and our focus is industrializing cleantech innovation.
00:28To enable this net zero economy.
00:32So if you give me three seconds in order to give you three key data or numbers about our company.
00:40The first one is that Peachbook has ranked us InnoEnergy
00:45as the most busy investor in sustainable energy in the world for the last three years.
00:53The second one is that at this moment we have a portfolio of more than 160 companies, 60 ventures.
01:01As you can see in the slides, we have companies that they are really focused on CapEx heavy.
01:10So indeed 70% of our portfolio has to do with this kind of industrial champions like green fertilizers, like
01:19green steel, gigafactories.
01:22And the third aspect and the third key number is 2.3.
01:292.3 gigatons of CO2 safe is what all these companies will achieve by 2030.
01:40If they are able to scale and to industrialize.
01:45And that is why today we are talking about scaling impact tech and lessons from industrializing clean energy.
01:55So just before starting with the lessons, just let me ask you one question.
02:05Who is already living in a net zero house?
02:14Nobody? No?
02:19Well, I have good news for you because indeed all the technology is already here.
02:31Today it is not about what it is next.
02:34Indeed we have to go on looking for these kind of innovations.
02:38But today it is about build out.
02:43Today it is about scaling those innovations and make it really happen in biggest scale.
02:53That is one of the good news that we have.
02:56And the second thing when we are talking about industrializing clean tech, clean tech energy.
03:02One important aspect is that we need to identify that we are talking about an industrial startup.
03:08And this is a very different type of a usual startup.
03:13And it is going to affect the financing.
03:15But it is going to affect also the skills that we are going to need.
03:21So for the last 15 years we have tried to do this.
03:26This challenge to identify the best innovators mainly in Europe.
03:31In clean tech and then industrialize the solutions so that we can have that impact.
03:38And we have some learnings.
03:41One of the first challenge that we have when we are doing industrialization is that.
03:47Where is the market?
03:49Is there a market there?
03:51Because we are going to scale up.
03:53We are going to be needed a lot of funding.
03:58Is there a market for these emerging technologies?
04:01And that is where the offtake role in this industrialization is going to be a key part.
04:08There are two different strategies that we are seeing that it is working.
04:12Some companies for instance like Estegra, which is working in green steel.
04:17Before scaling up, what they did was to have a pipeline, a long pipeline of long term contracts with offtakers.
04:27So somehow they were securing the demand.
04:30And that gives also confidence when we are going to funding.
04:34Another strategy with the offtakers has been for instance companies like 30G.
04:3830G is green fertilizers.
04:40And what they have been doing is including the offtaker in the cap table.
04:44So for instance, Heineken is one of the initial investors in the cap table.
04:51So they put the customer, the offtaker inside.
04:56Okay.
04:57So somehow we have been able to prove there is a demand.
05:00There is going to be offtakers that they are really waiting for these emerging new technologies that we have.
05:08But now show me the money because in order to scale, I'm going to need a lot of money.
05:15And here is where we are trying to look for blended solutions.
05:20So even if it is in early States, we are looking for equity investment and creating this cap table.
05:28But also what we are going to need is this kind of venture debt.
05:32And one of the reasons is that most of the funders, they don't want to dilute also.
05:38So we need this kind of combination.
05:40They need also a strategic investors at the very first beginning and let the financial ones step into the cap
05:46table afterwards.
05:48But here, and that is where we have the first gap, is the financial gap.
05:55Especially in Europe, we don't have this kind of money.
06:03I mean just a data, only 12% of the venture funding goes to a scale-ups.
06:11Still, even our schemes are very focused on this kind of first innovations, but not in the scale-ups.
06:18So what is the problem?
06:20The problem is that these companies that I have shown you, the 160 companies that we have in the portfolio,
06:27they have been able to raise and to mobilize 34 billion.
06:32And when they reach a scale, the only money is Anglo-Xastro money.
06:37We don't have European enough force to attract that capital.
06:44Also, we need new instruments of funding.
06:48And one of the things that we are claiming and the entrepreneurs are claiming is that please give us warranties.
06:55Warranties and subsidies to the production, because it is a question of scaling up.
07:02So we have also now hopefully the money and then the next thing is that, okay, let's make it happen.
07:10And here we have two challenges.
07:11And one of the first challenges is the skills.
07:1480% of the industrial projects that we have in Europe are delayed because of the lack of skills.
07:19Because for that, we need people that are working in the factories, in the manufacturing plants.
07:26And unfortunately, we lost these skills.
07:29So this is one going to be one of the challenges.
07:32The other challenge, as we were saying before, industrial startup needs another type of profile in terms of the CEO.
07:40And at that moment, we need a CEO that understands about manufacturing.
07:44So it's not only about the business development, but it is also about the creation of the supply chains.
07:52The third aspect there has to do with the creation of value chains.
07:57And this is very important.
07:59For instance, one company that we have, it is a Gigafactory.
08:01It is called Berco.
08:02It is a unicorn, a European unicorn.
08:05And then they are, not only they need to create, to manufacture the battery, but they need to establish relationships
08:14with the companies that have to do with active materials, cathodes, anodes, even recycling.
08:21And this is important for the link with industrial policy.
08:25We need to have the whole value change.
08:29So finally, I mean, these are learnings of the individual cases of the individual companies that we have had.
08:37But there is something important, which is the institutional context.
08:40And here, sometimes they, do we need more regulation?
08:43I say, no, no, we don't need more regulation.
08:45We just need to put the regulation into work, the one that we have.
08:49And also, especially in Europe, we have a kind of privilege situation because we have targets and we have a
08:58stable commitment that it is securing the market conditions.
09:03Today, many of the entrepreneurs, when they have these binding targets in the legislation, make sure that there is going
09:11to be a market for them.
09:12The only thing that we need is this kind of incentives.
09:15And there, we are very bad in Europe.
09:17We are more for the stick and less for the incentives.
09:20We need this intensive so that the industrial champions can be here and work together.
09:27So, as you can see, even if you are an entrepreneur, one big corporate, a regulator, an investor, all of
09:36us, we play a role in industrializing clean tech innovation.
09:40Thank you very much.
Commentaires