One is AligND Systems, which is a new startup but that focuses on taking Sol Voltaic’s technology further, after it’s bankruptcy earlier this year. The other is a Växjö-based company called Gimic, which focuses on machine learning technology for industrial applications.

Michal and Magnus sold the IoT startup Mistbase the co-founded to British ARM 2017 – a year and a half after they founded it. Since then, they have been looking for investments individually, but have now merged them and started Mist Ventures.

“We complement each other with different contact networks and knowledge, myself more within hardware and Magnus within software. In less than a year we have looked at 60-70 pitches from start-up companies in Skåne and looked deeper in about 15 of the companies.” says Michal Stala to Rapidus.

The aim of Mist Ventures is to invest so called deep-tech startups, building on advanced technologies.

“Our investment strategy means that we are looking for companies that have a competitive advantage based on their advanced technology, preferably from research. Another part we look at is the business model, where we prefer business-to-business. We also want companies to be able to scale up globally. Our investments so far follow our investment strategy very well and we are very excited about these companies future journey.” Says Magnus Midholt

Based in Lund, just as Mistbase was, makes an indirect focus on startups in this region.

“I may be home-blind, but the feeling is that Lund has many more startups with high technological innovation and with links to research. Stockholm may have more app companies, service companies, software companies. There should be a better exchange of investors and companies between Skåne and Stockholm.” says Michal Stala to Rapidus.

As we recently wrote, in Lund there is definitely happening a lot within tech, both research heavy and more software related. But now with multiple new fonds and initiatives emerging, such as Mist Ventures and 1337 Partners, the venture capital side is growing as well.

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The tech company, which builds on research at Lund University, has since the start been funded with a total in the range of SEK 500 million (€ 50 million), including support from the Swedish Energy Agency and the EU. Also among the shareholders are Industrifonden, Nano Future Invest, the Wallenbergs Foundation Foundation Asset Management, the Norwegian Kagra Group and the Saudi Riyadh Valley Company. With their patented technology Aerotaxy, currently Sol Voltaics had been on their way to reach mass production of SolFilm, which can increase solar panel efficiency by 50%.

However, their development did not go as they had planned, which is the reason why investors decided to stop the capital injection. Sol Voltaics’ CEO Erik Smith said that they would need another two or three years and 200-250 million SEK to reach their goal, but their investors seem unwilling to support the company. Per Anell, investment manager at Industrifonden, one of the biggest investor of Sol Voltaic explained the reason why they stopped investing in Sol Volatics as follows,

“We invest in companies with very high potential and risk, it is our business model and sometimes it does not go as planned. Sol Voltaics did not develop at the pace planned and in this area very large sums of money are required. The owner consortium therefore wanted to find a new partner who could enter new capital, but when it did not, we had to pull the brake.”

Now, Sol Voataics is looking for the way to continue their business. They have developed a lot of patented technologies which are valuable in the field of biotechnology for developing biosensors, and for the development of nanotubes. That someone will buy the intellectual properties and the business will survive in new areas where their technology can be applied is one scenario. Schedule a free Consultation with a bankruptcy lawyer los angeles to get in charge of your finances.

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Lund University has been operating its holding company since 1997. Twenty years later, there are still previous and current portfolio companies with no revenues. Accounts of every third company have exceeded more than SEK 500,000 (ca. € 52,000) as net income according to the latest financial statements. Only 10%  of previous and current portfolios have shown earnings. A set of portfolios have either been canceled or went bankrupt.

The culminating companies are dominated by companies that are still, wholly or partially, dependent on venture capital. There are still high-profile companies with good investment outcomes in the Öresund region, such as Fieldly, BoMill, BioInvent, SolVoltaics and Glo.

“Generally speaking, many of our projects are far from the market. They need a lot of venture capital. GLO is a clear example, as the company has received more than one SEK billion (ca. € 1,200 000) , most recently from Google, which means that it is on track. But they have no black figures yet, “says Lund University Innovation Director Linus Wiebe.

In recent years, LU Holding, though, managed to attract over SEK 50 million (ca. € 5200 000) on its investment activities, primarily by selling shares in portfolio companies, above all those that chose to go to the stock market at an early stage. Expectedly, there will be a double-digit amount for the acquisition of Mistbase by the British company ARM.

This is in comparison with the SEK 1.5  (ca. € 156 000) million that the future Malmö University’s new holding company shall get from the state, if the government’s proposal goes through.

“It will be a challenge to build up an investment business with such a small capital base. And it takes time, as well, says Linus Wiebe.

He points out, however, that there are also other points with a holding company, in particular, that the university can enter into joint ventures in various collaborative projects or pursue activities related to research and education in a corporate form.

Recently, the LU Holding became an important player in the eco-system of Skåne region. This year, it supported researches proposed by the university. The main goal of the university is not to make money, but to help the research-based companies that can contribute to the social development. LU Holding is a combination between academic work and business.

Researching is the base of LU Holding work, and the bulk of LU Holding investments exists in nano-tech, IT and medicine, i.e. scalable sectors that enabled the company to profit tenth of millions SEK in the recent years; such figures that Malmö University with its holding company dreams of.

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Sol Voltaics has closed a record funding round of $21.3 million (approximately, €18,7 million). This is the largest finance raise for a European solar technology company since 2015. The new finance will be used to accelerate commercialization of its highly anticipated solar efficiency boosting technology, SolFilm which promises to increase conventional solar panel efficiencies by up to 50%.

Sol Voltaics is based in Lund and the scientific founder is world-renowned nanotechnologist Lars Samuelson in Lund, Sweden.  Samuelsson’s intellectual property is based on 15 years of gallium-arsenide (GaAs) nanowire research done in cooperation with Lund University.

SolFilm, a patented, low cost thin-film which is comprised of billions of highly efficient Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) nanowires, enables solar panel manufacturers to reach efficiencies of up to 27% when integrated as a tandem-junction module.  Sol Voltaics is now in the final stages of technology optimization, with anticipated samples of its SolFilm being sent to partners by the end of 2018.

“This latest round of finance gives us the critical capital required to commercialize our efficiency boosting technology for the solar market,” said Erik Smith, Sol Voltaics CEO in a pressrelease. “Having achieved our final major technology milestone with Aerotaxy earlier this year, we are now fully focused on reaching mass production of SolFilm.”

The latest funding features new investment from Norwegian company Watrium AS, alongside previous investors Kagra Gruppen AS, Nordic VC firm Industrifonden, FAM AB, Nano Future Invest, Blue Marlin AB and Teknoinvest AS. The investment brings total funding raised to $38m (€33,4m) in the past 12 months, following the company’s $17m funding round in 2016.

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“His experience, reputation and technology expertise will add a new dynamism to our management team as we continue to improve our offering and fulfill our ambition of bringing this transformative technology to the market,” – commented Erik Smith, CEO of  Sol Voltaics.

Sol Voltaics improves efficiency of solar energy capture, generation and storage through the use of nanomaterials and Arno Stassen, just like that Marketing Company, will help the company bring their revolutionary technology to the market.

Dr. Stassen has over ten-year experience in the global solar energy industry.  He has led numerous industry R&D programs in the field of crystalline silicon solar cells at Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN).  He has also contributed to the 2014 and 2015 International Technology Roadmap for Photovoltaic (ITRPV), a leading organization in the PV industry.  His last position was the head of business development at PV energy division of Heraeus Group. Arno Stassen comments his appointment in an official press-release:

“Having worked in advanced PV for the past 10 years, I fully understand the current limitations for the industry in achieving breakthrough efficiency technology at low costs. Sol Voltaics’ compelling tandem-layer technology and novel Aerotaxy® nanowire manufacturing process show enormous potential to enable module efficiency improvements up to and above 30%.”

Dr. Stassen has great confidence in Sol Voltaics. Not only because its revolutionary technology can transform the mainstream energy solutions, but also because the mainstream energy market needs this company.

Stassen’s appointment follows Sol Voltaics’ record 140M SEK ($17 million) series C funding round in May, the largest European solar technology funding round secured by a start-up in the past two years. See previous report.  Among other funding rounds are 100M SEK (€11.6M) capital injection in 2013.

This year Sol Voltaic also announced a successful alignment of gallium-arsenide nano-wires in a thin film, which is a major technology breakthrough, that showed a measurable progress towards Sol Voltaics’ ambition to the final commercial product.

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The funding will be put towards speeding up the commercialization process of Sol Voltaics’ unique product: a nanowire solar film tandem-layer technology. The company recently announced a major technological breakthrough that enhance energy generation compared to today’s solar panels by impressive 50%.

“We are excited to be part of a company that can provide such a dynamic change to the solar industry”, said Dr. Khalid Al Saleh, CEO of RVC.

“With the company’s recent technology breakthroughs and nanowire efficiency world record we believe Sol Voltaics can lead the tandem solar cell revolution.”

The investment is aligned with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, where the country aims to achieve an initial domestic deployment target of 9.5 gigawatts of solar and other renewable energy sources by 2030.

According to Apricum, financial adviser to Sol Voltaics, the capital raised represents the largest solar-technology funding round in Europe over the past 18 months.

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The six startups that made the list are:

• Anolytech
• Avidicare
• Mapillary
• Simris Alg
• Sol Voltaics
• TrialBee

Last years winners were Neo Technology, Zaplox, Sol Voltaics, Anolytech and Trialbee. Three of those kept their places, but Zaplox and Neo Technology are no longer on it. Why that is we do not know, but from Zaplox going strong with the latest news where about big orders and large collaborations, and the guys at Neo are moving even further into the U.S. market.

Newcomers on the list

New on the list are Mapillary, an ambitious startup by veterans from Neo, PolarRose and Apple – aiming to do what Google has done with streetview but enabling it everywhere. You can read an interview with Jan Erik Solem that we have done earlier here.

Also new is Simris Alg, a company that aims to take food production to a new level, using specialised algea, that recently announced a new round of € 1.3 M funding.

And the third newcomer on the list is Avidicare, a MedTech startup that works with air-contamination in healthcare.

If you want to know more about the other startups, you can do that here: Anolytech, Sol Voltaics and Trialbee.

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“With this closing we now have the resources to take the company to pilot production. Together with strategic partners, we plan to demonstrate Wave Concentrated Photovoltaics using large quantities of nanowires on commercially viable solar cells.” said David Epstein, CEO, Sol Voltaics in their press release.

The company has developed away to produce nanowires for cheaper production of solar cells. The funds will be used to bring a high efficiency photovoltaic ink, Solink, to next stage of development. Commercial production of the Solink-enhanced modules will begin in 2015 and move into volume production in 2016. Read the full press release from Sol Voltaics here.

The post Sol Voltaics completes €11.6M in fundraising round appeared first on Øresund Startups.

The prestigious list includes 5 Øresund region companies (click for Ny Teknik articles): Neo Technology, Zaplox, Sol Voltaics, Anolytech, and Trialbee.

Developed in in Malmö, Neo Technology is still running hot with its Neo4j graph database, having moved its head office to the Silicon Valley, and hits the 33-list for the third year running. Newcomer cleantech from Ystad, Anolytech, appears for its enviro-friendly process to contribute to a world with less toxins and antibiotics, providing big problem solutions.

Zaplox, from Lund, is unlocking us from physical keys, to open doors with smartphones. The application for mobile keys include check- in and out services and pay-by-phone at hotels. Sol Voltaics, is developing solar cells efficient and economical enough to compete with fossil fuels. The technology improves efficiency of energy capture, generation and storage using nano-materials, is based on world-leading research conducted at Lund University. Trialbee, Lund-based software developers, are using web-based statistical models and a collaboration platform between patients and pharma companies, to increase speed and accuracy of patient recruitment and retention in clinical trials.

The competition criteria considers market potential, access to financing and management daring-to-challenge attitude, rather the typical employee numbers or turnover measures. The judges conduct interviews with business, technology and industry experts to appoint with the final winners come from all industries, all over Sweden. Check out the full list.

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