Finland-based Cleantech Invest have attracted new strategic investors from China, Silicon Valley and Sweden. Cleantech Invest itself invests in the most promising early-stage and growth cleantech companies in Finland, Sweden and in the Baltic Sea area.
The main part of the emission is invested by Zhejiang Ruiyang Technologies Company (Ruiyang), located in one of the fastest growing cities and growth hubs of China, Hangzhou City. Ruiyang is a leading industrial player as well as investor in Chinese cleantech sector.
CEO Alexander Lidgren comments: “After strong growth in portfolio revenues the international interest in us has been high. We have chosen to bring in three strategic actors that all add value through their respective networks in China, Silicon Valley and Sweden. Just as we have announced we will be making steps to gain strategic footholds on international hotspots for our companies.”
The Chinese market is the largest in the world for a majority of environmental technologies and Ruiyang takes a very active role in accelerating companies on the market while also providing capital. The focus of Ruiyang also matches that the Cleanteach Invest portfolio very well with green technology, industrial internet, and new energy being among the Chinese investor’s main target areas and where they invest directly themselves.
As one example, Ruiyang is the largest shareholder and founder of Focused Photonics Inc. (FPI), which has rapidly developed into a leading provider of environmental services in China, listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, with a market value over 1 Bn EUR. Ruiyang also holds investments for instance in new energy, energy efficiency and industrial circulating water systems.
CEO Alexander Lidgren comments: “We believe that our portfolio will greatly benefit from the connections we are now building with Ruiyang technology group. In their ownership sphere are a number of companies that provide a perfect fit for our portfolio to scale up in China. We see this investment as a first step to work closely with Ruiyang, both when it comes to market development of our portfolio but also when it comes to identifying future investment opportunities, where we will greatly benefit from hands-on advice as to where the Chinese market has a clear need and willingness to pay.”
Dr. Jian Wu, Investment Director, Ruiyang: “We see the Nordics as prime global deal flow area with good clean technology and ideas for the massive Chinese market. Due to lack of local cleantech focused major investors we also see attractive valuations for investors. Together with Cleantech Invest we will build a bridge of Nordic cleantech to the Chinese market.”
Other investors in the round are Epstein Advisors, headed by Dave Epstein, business angel and entrepreneur with a venture capitalist background who resides in Palo Alto, California. Having made numerous investments in Nordic cleantech companies as well as in the US growth cases, Epstein brings an extensive network in the Silicon Valley ecosystem.
“Silicon Valley is the home of some incredible value growth stories in the sharing economy as well as downstream solar and Internet of Things, to mention a few areas. This market is where we can find investors, markets as well as acquisition options for some of our portfolio cases and we need to be closer to it. Dave knows the Silicon Valley ecosystem well and is unique in that he also knows the Nordic cleantech ecosystem.”
Last but no least joining the round is GLD Invest, a Stockholm based private company investing in the early venture phase of companies. GLD holds a number of cleantech investments, among them clean energy technology company Comsys as well as indirectly Cleantech Invest portfolio company Swap.com. GLD is a long time growth investor and has deep understanding of many of the areas where Cleantech Invest also invests in, and in such wide areas as energy and e-commerce. The investment also marks the start of building a Swedish shareholder base.
