New business opportunities in renewable energy and energy saving

Energy Spin, one of the Energy Week events, brought 17.3.2016 once again energy startups, investors and a large number of persons interested in networking opportunities together. The venue was Hanken's Assembly Hall in Vaasa.

Of the two keynote speakers, Ted Ridgway Watt, CEO of Teraloop Ltd, focused in his speech on the importance of storage of energy: without it, renewable energies will not reach their maximum effect. Frederic Miribel from ADERLY/Invest In Lyon, discussed in depth how cluster thinking can help startups at both European and world level.

Ted Ridgway Watt, Teraloop Ltd

Vaasa Entrepreneurship Society VES had compiled a top 30-list of most promising energy startups in Europe, in a similar way as the year before. The orange compact leaflet was being studied diligently during the afternoon.

After their own presentations, the panel discussions participants GM Business Innovation Tero Hottinen (Wärtsilä) Ted Ridgway Watt, Chief Research Scientist Antti-Jussi Tahvanainen (ETLA), VP Energy Efficiency Andras Puskas (SUSI Partners AG) and CTO Heli Antila (Fortum) reflected on what is the single biggest challenge in financing new technology, whether money is a key resource in the field and what larger companies can offer small enterprises.

The panel also discussed audience questions on financing models.

After the panel discussion, the audience was divided into two groups and the program continued with prebooked speed dating -sessions and pitches in front of a jury. The pitches offered a whole lot to watch and listen to. The pitches, limited to 4 minutes each, given by Aurelia Turbines, OptiWatti, EnergySolaris, BroadBit Batteries, Upside Energy, Finrenes and Iimes also gave the audience a model of how to convince investors. The jury was led by Rene Savelsberg (SET Ventures) and consisted of representatives for Tekes, VNTM and FiBAN.

– It was amazing to organize an event of this kind that genuinely increases the participating businesses’ networks and through them creates new business opportunities in the field of renewable energies and energy saving, says Marko Koski, Business Advisor at VASEK and event responsible for Energy Spin.

Energy Spin filled the Hanken Assembly Hall.

The breathtakingly rapid-paced event continued with a briefing on Fast Track Energy Kasvu Open Competition and concluded with informal mingling.

Additional information

[contact_member,name=Marko Koski,id=18,details=Name-Designation-AdditionalInformation-Phone-MobilePhone-Email-MemberPhoto]