Powervault raises £700,000 in plan to lead UK home energy storage market

British tech start-up takes on Tesla with target to put home energy storage systems in 50,000 homes by 2020

British technology start-up Powervault has raised £700,000 on investment crowdfunding platform Crowdcube to take on Tesla and become the leading UK player in the rapidly emerging home energy storage market, it announced today.

Powervault, which plans to sell 50,000 home energy storage systems by 2020, took just three and a-half days to reach its £700,000 target in its second funding round, including £200,000 from the London Co-Investment Fund and £100,000 from Future matters.

The London-based company has developed the UK’s first simple and affordable home energy storage system, enabling homeowners to store electricity they generate from solar panels and cut their electricity bills.

Electric car maker Tesla recently made headlines around the world by unveiling batteries for homes and businesses that charge from solar panels, accelerating interest in the energy storage market.  It received reservations worth $800 million in the first week.[1]Last week Mercedes-Benz unveiled its own product, further evidence of the market opportunity in battery storage linked with renewables.

Powervault aims to become the leading UK supplier of home energy storage solutions. Its patent pending product is a complete system in a box, including batteries, charger, inverter and control unit, which can be installed by an electrician in an hour. It is compatible with all solar PV systems, and requires no extra equipment or significant rewiring of the home.

By contrast, many other companies including Tesla are only selling a battery-based partial solution rather than complete home storage systems. They require spending on additional components, are more complicated to install, and are not compatible with all solar systems.

Powervault’s mission is to produce the most practical and affordable product for the UK market, balancing useful capacity against cost. It is partnering with solar PV companies to sell systems between 2kWh and 4 kWh with an installed price of £2,000 to £2,800.

 The Powervault system stores surplus electricity during the day and slowly releases it in the evening, allowing homeowners to keep their own power for when they need it, rather than exporting it to utilities and paying more to get it back. It can lower household energy bills by up to 15% and saves 0.3 tonnes of carbon a year from conventional generation.

Powervault Managing Director Joe Warren said: “This is a state-of-the-art, British designed product which will cut homeowners’ electricity bills, increase their energy security and help the UK cut carbon emissions. We’re already making sales and we aim to be a household name in five years, making a significant impact with products in 50,000 homes around the country.

 “Tesla is raising awareness of home energy storage, exciting potential customers and helping to create a market. Their entry into the market demonstrates the scale of the business opportunity, with battery costs falling and up to two million UK homes forecast to have solar panels by 2020.

The Powervault system has been designed specifically to meet the needs of British homeowners and is available today."

Greg Barker, former Minister for Energy and Climate Change, said: “Home energy storage can play a key role in building a low-carbon economy, saving money for homeowners and helping the UK to cut its carbon emissions. Powervault is a British company with a British designed product and it’s great to see them ready to seize the opportunities of this rapidly growing market.”

Powervault has won several awards and received over £285,000 in grant and prize funding from organisations including Royal Bank of Scotland, Nesta, InnovateUK and ClimateKIC. Crowdfunding campaigns have raised a total £900,000 from consumers, angel investors and venture capitalists. Its first Crowdcube campaign in 2014 raised £150,000 of seed funding in eight hours – a world record.

The company has an aggressive plan for growth. It will use its new funding to implement a redesign which will cut its manufacturing costs by 20%, to develop a lithium-ion version of the product, and to establish new sales channels.

Powervault expects to have sold 10,000 home energy storage systems in three years and 50,000 within five years, by which time it expects them to retail for less than £1000.

Maggie Rodriguez-Piza, CEO of Funding London, said: “We are delighted to support Powervault as the first clean tech investment by the London Co-investment Fund. Powervault’s energy storage solutions are a strong example of technology emanating from London’s vibrant clean tech sector and highlight the city’s credentials in environmental innovation.”

Luke Lang, co-founder of Crowdcube, said: “It’s fantastic that our investor community has been able to invest alongside the London Co-Investment Fund in an innovative tech business like Powervault. It was one of the fastest funding businesses on Crowdcube, demonstrating the crowd’s appetite to invest in the emerging home energy storage market.”

Vitaly Lazorin, founder and CEO of Future Matters, said: “Our focus is to source innovative technologies that contribute to and support our environment. In Powervault, we have found a unique constellation of technology that is developed by people who are genuinely committed to making it part of our everyday life. This has the added benefit of having a positive impact on everyone’s future.”

 

Interactive Design Institute aims to capitalise on growing market with £2 million of SLF funding

The Scottish Loan Fund (SLF) is pleased to announce that it has committed £2m of funding in support of The Interactive Design Institute (IDI), one of the UK’s leading providers of accredited online courses to students at degree and masters levels.

Musselburgh-based IDI delivers online courses to students throughout the UK and in more than 70 countries worldwide.  Founded in 2004 and employing a core office staff of 30 alongside a network of tutors and developers across the UK, the business has developed an online cloud-based learning environment becoming the first fully online provider in the UK to gain approved status from the Quality Assurance Agency. In addition to partnering with Higher Education Institutions such as the University of Hertfordshire, IDI’s learning management system can also be customised, providing a ‘white label’ service for other training institutions and corporate partners such as IDI’s relationship with one of the world’s largest publishers, Penguin Random House.

The capital injection from SLF will allow the business to invest further in its delivery platform and systems as well as increasing its digital marketing spend to attract more overseas students from key international markets.  The market for online education has seen rapid expansion and is predicted to be a key route by which UK Universities will increase their share of the international higher education market.

IDI has plans to capitalise on the global standing of the UK Education brand by increasing the number of courses it offers across a range of subject areas and is targeting additional partnerships with other Higher and Further Education Institutions.

David Milroy, Investment Director at Maven, said: “IDI has created a valuable platform that we believe will be attractive to a number of Universities and corporate partners with an interest in training.  On-line education is an exciting market and IDI is ideally positioned to leverage the UK’s universities as they successfully market their services abroad.  With access to development capital via SLF the Company will be able to step up its sales and marketing efforts which are vital in securing new partnerships and enrolling new students.”

Fiona Crosbie, Director of Student Recruitment and Marketing at IDI, said: “We are excited about the future prospects for IDI having secured the financial and strategic support of SLF and Maven. With access to the SLF funding we are able to implement a number of key initiatives that will enhance our leading learning management system and commit to further investment that underpins our longer term goals.”

Scottish Enterprise’s investment arm, the Scottish Investment Bank, is the cornerstone investor in the Scottish Loan Fund.

Michelle Kinnard, Investment Director at Scottish Investment Bank, said: “Investment support can be key to supporting a company’s growth ambition and we are delighted to see the Loan Fund help another ambitious Scottish company in its desire to grow and access international markets.  The SLF continues to work with companies like IDI to help them realise their potential, creating value and jobs for Scotland.”

Financial due diligence was conducted by Consilium, Legals by MBM Commercial and Insurance by Lockton.

 

 

UK private equity returns double that of pension funds and FTSE All-Share

 

Published today, the BVCA’s annual Performance Measurement Survey examines the performance of UK private equity and venture capital funds and how they compare against other asset classes.

The survey, produced in association with PwC and Capital Dynamics, finds that the combined 10 year internal rate of return (IRR) for private equity and venture capital stood at 14.9% for 2014, nearly double the figure returned by UK pension fund assets (7.8%) and the FTSE All-Share (7.6%).

Venture capital funds in particular have had a successful year, with 2014 marking both the highest performance for all venture funds since the financial crisis, and the first time that since-inception returns for pre-2002 funds have been positive since the BVCA began measuring their performance.

Highlights include:

• Since-inception performance of all funds recorded an IRR of 13.8%, remaining strong and well within the typical range of returns for the industry.
• The five year IRR for all funds covered in this survey was 11.5%. This compares with the returns generated by total UK pension fund assets of 9.4% and FTSE All-Share of 8.7%.
• Pre-2002 venture capital fund vintages obtained an IRR of 34.2% in 2014 and the asset class as a whole reached an annual IRR of 14.6%.
• Small MBOs have remained strong performers, with a since-inception IRR of 14.9% and a 10 year IRR of 39.2%.

John Dwyer, PwC deals leader, said:

“Private equity has had its downs as well as ups over the last ten years, and returns from different years tell their different stories. Taking the decade as a whole though, PE has shown real resilience in comfortably outperforming pension assets and the listed sector. More recent, post-crisis vintages have performed well and successful exits over the last few years have shown how the industry can respond to a downturn, which is encouraging for investors.”

 

LendInvest Receives First European Rating for a Peer-to-Peer Platform

LendInvest has confirmed that it has received the first European rating from a regulated credit rating agency for a peer-to-peer platform.

LendInvest received a rating of SQ1, from ARC Ratings, which is the highest rating possible from the agency. The rating was a Quality Assurance Rating, which assessed LendInvest's ability to originate deal-flow, and its underwriting and servicing capabilities.

ARC Ratings is a registered Credit Ratings Agency with the European Securities and Markets Authority. The rating that they have given to LendInvest, is the first rating from a regulated credit rating agency for a peer-to-peer platform in Europe.

The rating for LendInvest, comes off the back of the news last week that LendInvest has just done the largest Series A fundraising for a UK FinTech business, having raised £22m from a listed Chinese technology company.

ARC Ratings commented:

"LendInvest displays strong corporate governance, a high level of transparency, and extensive systems and controls... The primary servicer rating [SQ1] reflects LendInvest's robust internal controls/systems, servicing experience in the real estate lending and collections industry, and recent financial performance."

Christian Faes, LendInvest CEO, commented:

"The fact that LendInvest was able to get a rating from a regulated credit rating agency, is a positive step for the whole peer-to-peer marketplace lending market in Europe.Credit ratings agencies are understandably cautious when looking at new business models like marketplace lending. However, this represents a move towards the mainstream for peer-to-peer and marketplace lending, and a real coup for LendInvest."

 

EBAN and ESA Join Forces to Make Entrepreneurship and Investment in Space a New Asset Class for Europe

24 June, Munich: 

EBAN, the European Trade Association for Business Angels, Seed Funds and Early Stage Market Players, and ESA, the European Space Agency, have announced to have entered into a wide-ranging agreement to help start-up entrepreneurs, active in space related activities professionalize their businesses and value propositions, all the while encouraging and inspiring private and public investors to see space related businesses as a most attractive investment opportunity and asset class.

The announcement was made during the opening ceremony of the Global Innovation Conference of the International Aeronautical Foundation taking place in Munich.

“ESA has played a pioneering role not only in leading European governments and corporations into space but also in inspiring, facilitating, encouraging, and funding entrepreneurs and start-ups to develop new space related businesses with their ground-breaking ESA Business Incubation Centres  (BICs),” noted EBAN President Candace Johnson.  “Europe's space programmes in satellite navigation (Galileo), Earth observation (Copernicus), and satellite communications offer fantastic opportunities. We are excited to be working with ESA throughout the entire selection, mentoring, accompanying and investment process to turn these start-ups into scale-ups and a new asset class for Europe’s early-stage investors.”

The ESA BICs are initiated by ESA's Technology Transfer Programme Office (TTPO) and work to inspire entrepreneurs to turn space-connected business ideas into commercial companies, while providing technical expertise and business-development support. The TTPO’s goal is to boost local economy by creating jobs, investing in start-ups and supporting sustainable innovation.  TTPO is also responsible for the management of the patents portfolio and is tasked to market ESA’s own IP to the non-space industry in order to make sure they are exploited to their full potential.

The ESA BIC programme currently offers start-up entrepreneurs extensive financial and technical support at 20 locations in eight countries: Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and the UK. Additional ESA BIC locations are in the planning for Madrid, Czech Republic, Switzerland,  Ireland, Austria and Norway.  This programme supports more than 100 new start-ups on a yearly basis.

“We are looking forward to helping our ESA BIC entrepreneurs go to the next level in their professionalization and investment through our partnership with EBAN,” said Frank Salzgeber , Head of ESA’s Technology Transfer Programme Office and responsible for the coordination of the ESA BIC programme,  and the regional partners. “For the last 15 years EBAN has been developing Angel and Early-Stage investing to be an asset class through its promotion, professionalization, investor-readiness and investor accreditation programs.  Our start-ups will benefit from their accumulated experience, expertise, networks and yes, financial investment to become Global Success Stories made in Europe.”

The partnership, which starts immediately, will link the ESA BICs to EBAN members throughout all of Europe and will involve regular selection, pitching, and mentoring activities leading up to investment.  ESA BICs entrepreneurs will also participate in EBAN regular events such as their EBAN Annual Congress and Winter University as well as specific events aimed at making ESA BICs start-ups more investor ready and EBAN’s early-stage investment community more “space and space-tech” savvy.

“We believe this is a win-win-win partnership for Europe’s Space and Entrepreneur Eco-System”, declared  Johnson and Salzgeber.  “Europe’s destiny for the 21st century is in space and we will be working together to make it happen.”

 

Investment of £3.7m in three ambitious Scottish companies by Archangels and Scottish Investment Bank

Additional funding totalling £3.7m has been invested in three growing Scottish businesses by Archangel Investors and Scottish Investment Bank (SIB) in the 2nd quarter of 2015, taking total joint funding for the year to £6.8m. The prominent business angel syndicate, based in Edinburgh, has been at the forefront of early stage investing in Scotland for more than two decades, alongside Scottish Enterprise’s investment arm, SIB.

All three businesses – Calcivis, NetThings and Reactec – have received support from Archangels from early stage and the capital raised will enable each entrepreneurial initiative to fund further growth. Around 70 of Archangels’ investor members chose to participate in these funding rounds.

Calcivis, located at Edinburgh’s Bioquarter, has this week received an additional investment of £2.6m to fund further development of its dental imaging system – a sophisticated medical device designed to transform the assessment and management of tooth decay by providing a real-time assessment that is tailored and evidence based. This investment has also helped Calcivis secure a further £2m grant from the European Horizon 2020 SME (small to medium enterprise) instrument programme.

Calcivis Chief Executive, Adam Christie, said: “Having now run our first clinical study of the device, this funding will enable us to finalise the design of our first commercial product then test launch it in one European country, most likely the UK, and to complete the US regulatory process. I’ve worked with Archangels since 2007 and I’ve always found them to be very engaged partners in the whole process of creating successful companies.”

Edinburgh-based NetThings has developed a platform that simplifies the connecting and controlling of devices over the internet, for businesses and consumers, providing insight and energy management with the aim of helping people to start managing and controlling costs and energy usage.  The company plans to use its additional funding of £700,000 to expand its offering from the domestic to the SME market.

NetThings’ Chief Executive, George McGhee, said:  “We are launching a new product range into the SME market in the second half of 2015 and this additional funding was essential to the completion of the development of the products and to taking them to market. It allowed us to invest in some key software skills and to add more experience to the commercial side of the business. This will enable our objective of achieving breakeven by the end of this year.”

“I have the greatest respect for the role both Archangels and Scottish Enterprise play in backing early stage companies in Scotland. They have been front and centre in supporting the development of the NetThings business.”

Edinburgh’s Reactec, has developed a unique solution to help companies whose employees use heavy tools to monitor and analyse their exposure to potentially harmful hand and arm vibration (HAV). With 50% of reported occupational industrial diseases being HAVS related, their unique HAVMETER, combined with a newly released cloud-based reporting platform, provides a solution to analyse and help reduce exposure to employees in a wide range of industry sectors. Since launching in 2001, Reactec has already grown to protect around 30,000 customer employees.

Jacqui McLaughlin, Reactec’s Chief Executive, said: “This £400,000 of funding will allow us to invest in our business development capability, creating three roles within Reactec and improving our routes to market. We also plan to upgrade the technology in our product to further advance our competitive edge in a market place, which is attracting new entrants.

“Archangels have been a fantastic, supportive shareholder. They are savvy to the need for us to keep up with the latest technological advances and they understand that it’s not just about selling products, but the strategy behind that.”

Andy Laing, Investment Executive at Archangels, said:

“These are great examples of growing Scottish businesses who have the potential to compete on a world stage and whose ideas, without early stage investment and ongoing support, would never have been realised. Scotland needs more enterprises like these and at Archangels we’re happy to support them.”

Kerry Sharp, Head of Scottish Investment Bank, said:

“It’s always great to see companies with an entrepreneurial mindset prosper and grow with support and investment. Working together in partnerships is the foundation of our operating model. The integrated approach of investment and support here in Scotland is building a track record of success stories.”