It was no picnic to get everyone trough the security gates at the far end of Pater Noster Sqare, but it was worth the wait. Once in, participants to the more than sold out Nordic Cleantech Showcase were met by the overwhelming feeling of actually being the centre of attention at one of the world oldest financial trading houses.

The square that hosts the London Stock Exchange is full of cafes. Fittingly so, since the exchange was started by a small group of like minded businessmen who up till then used coffee houses to meet and trade shares in companies. Now home to some of the largest, most successful and dynamic companies in the world it was a very suitable place to present 9 selected expansion and 9 selected start-up opportunities from the Nordic cleantech sector.

Participants got straight into things with the selected Nordic Cleantech Open finalists lining the walls with their solutions. These companies, who all have disruptive innovations and target big markets, where introduced to some of the biggest investors on the European cleantech scene as well as a few American guests. We got a lot of feedback from investors on these companies and it is clearly very attractive business cases, suitable for more than a few of the participating investors

The Nordic Cleantech Open companies by their stands.

Presentations on stage by 9 selected expansion stage companies followed. These were actors past commercialisation, now looking to expand their operations.

We concluded the day with Cleantech Scandinavia presenting the current state of the Nordic cleantech venture market, as 2010 figures point to a good year of deals, and seed investments taking off for the first time since 2007, but now at higher amounts

We at Nordic Cleantech Open are very proud to announce the top 25 finalists of this years competition.

The top 25 have a few traits in common:
– They are all targeting big international markets,
– They where founded relatively recently (a majority are less than two years old), and
– They have the potential to make real positive change for the environment.

The top 25 were selected by a jury of 32 individuals, a lot of them very experienced investors and industrials and other people with insights in cleantech markets. The Jury where instructed to evaluate the growth potential of the companies based on three things: the innovation, the market opportunity and the team of the companies.

The 25 finalists are:

AkkuSer
Applied Nano Surfaces
BT Wood
Cortus
Ecospark
Enevo
EnSol
GridManager
Innowind
JustCommonSense
MHG Systems
Mzymes
Netcycler
Oricane
Pontoon Power
Rehact
ReMake Electric
Scandinavian Energy Efficiency Co, SEEC
Seaweed Energy Solutions
Sorbwater Technology
Sorubin
Svenska Aerogel
Vigor Wave Energy
WindFlip
ZenRobotics

With the squeezed time limit for this years competition this was even better than we hoped for.

We will do a more in depth analysis of the contestants for the Top 25 Publication but a few things can be revealed already

With 31 countries competing, there was plenty of competition for the Nordic teams that had been selected to represent their countries in the Global Ideas competition in Silicon Valley. The event was very well visited this year with close to 1200 participants including investors, experts and cleantech companies.

The winner was selected, trough public voting announcing the proud winners of 30 country finalists: Abeo from Denmark.

Nordic Cleantech Open, the newly launched Nordic competition for Cleantech start-ups, is also appointing the country finalists from the five Nordic countries to the Global Ideas competition final that takes place in San Jose, California on the 17th of November. Our Selection process is now finished and we are very happy to have found five outstanding country winners among many great early entrants to the Nordic Cleantech Open.

The Winning teams are:

From Sweden:
Ecospark. Ecospark develops a new superior type of LED chips based on a Zink oxide semiconductor and nano wires. The chips will emit a high quality light spectrum similar to the sun at with very low energy consumption compared to light output. The manufacturing costs for the chip will also be 8 to 10 times lower than conventional technology.

From Denmark:
Abeo. Super-light building structures using various types of lightweight concrete that support a skeleton of strong concrete is the innovative idea that is introduced by Abeo. This method can typically save 30-50% of material costs in buildings. The technique also has several other benefits and opens up for new exciting architectural possibilities.

From Norway:
PontoonPower. Has developed a concept for a floating wave energy converter based on working pontoons, hydraulic pumping cylinders, hydroelectric turbine and generator mounted on a patent pending ballasting and load-bearing structure. The construction is relatively large scale with a production capacity of 15-20 megawatt. Energy production is estimated to be profitable compared other renewable offshore energy sources.

From Finland:
ZenRobotics. Have invented a robotic waste sorting system. Built with off the shelf industrial robotics components, the system utilizes biomimetic artificial intelligence to separate raw materials from construction and demolition waste (CND).

From Iceland:
RemakeElectrics. ReMake offer the public and SMEs an economical energy consumption monitoring system that can inform about real-time electrical load by a simple technique. This creates new opportunities in energy savings, electrical safety and in efficient electrical operation management.

A report highlighting the Finnish cleantech start-up scene including analysis by key actors and company descriptions was released at the Cleantech Venture Day. Read it here!