Per has been a Venture Partner at ETF since inception. Based in Stockholm, he sources new investments in the Nordic region as well as helping ETFs existing portfolio companies grow. Before ETF, Per ran GE-s business across the Nordic region and the Baltic States. Per has also worked at Motorola Semiconductor Europe, where he held various senior positions in Sweden, UK, Germany, and Switzerland.

This Hall of Fame is a homage for all the years that Per has been successful in attracting international venture capital to the Nordic region, pushed many innovations forward by investments and guidance and for being our close member and friend at Cleantech Scandinavia.

Soon to be retired from his tenure at ETF Partners, we welcome Per Ericsson to the Hall of Fame of Cleantech Scandinavia and we share a bit of our recent chat with him, with some perspectives, advices and plans moving forward.

Having worked with many startups and investors, his main advice to start-ups is to find and work close with a potential customer to see what they need. “Simplicity is always best and having closeness to a customer is key to keep your product innovative yet simple”. For Investors, he says to “avoid big capex as everything takes much longer times and cost more. Prepare an exit plan and establish who will be the off taker from the beginning.”

When asked about his perspective on big industry and the adoption of innovative solutions, Per believes that it is an area that startups still need to improve: “Big industries have always looked at more efficient ways of production but for small start-ups it will take time to get into companies production and get approved, sometimes it can take more than 5 years.  I have seen super technologies that do not fit in a cost-effective production line. A piece of advice at early stage is to talk to potential customers regarding what they need and not what you hope that they need.”

About these special times we are living in, he believes that the pandemic will slow down cleantech investments and business, maybe some will not survive, but in the longer term he thinks there can be an extra push to improve the environment and investors deciding to increase their portion of impact investment. Moreover, Per’s impression is that everyone is talking to increase the investments in impactful businesses, however, investors like pension funds must make sure that new technology can deliver same or better yield than today’s technology. “It’s up to the Cleantech segment that they can show improved profitability not just improved environment benefits”.

His plans for the upcoming retirement is to “enjoy for the first time in my life with an empty calendar” (good one, Per!) and to keep an eye in possible investment opportunities.

The official motivation is: “Per has meant a lot to the Nordic Cleantech sector for bringing ETF Partners, one of Europe’s most active Cleantech Venture Capital Fund, closer to the region and for supporting many Nordic entrepreneurs with valuable advice and contacts.”

As the previous nominees, Per Ericsson received a piece of art from renowned famous glass artist, Christian Svensson.

We would like to thank Per Ericsson for his immense contribution to the Cleantech sector and for being our partner and friend for all this year. We wish you great days of summer and a joyful life ahead!

Cities are central to current sustainable development; although they cover a bare 3% of the world’s surface, they consume 75% of global natural resources and therefore are responsible, directly or indirectly, for the vast majority of the world’s waste and emissions. Cities and municipalities need are of utmost importance when dealing with environmental and social issues, and they have a fundamental role in all sustainable development strategies. However, some cities can find it difficult to finance the actions that need to be taken in this process. The project “Accelerating sustainable finance: sustainable bonds for sustainable cities”, within the Viable Cities program, united CTS, SEI and SSE-Misum in January to study the feasibility, adequacy and ultimately the potential impact metrics in the case of sustainability bonds in Swedish municipalities and regions. This project will be developed in three years, in which in addition to desktop research, actors in the field will be involved through workshops and interviews. So far, we count with the involvement of several municipalities, Regions, Lund University and public and private investors.

Cleantech Scandinavia is one of the three partners of this project. Our main responsibility is to analyse the potential metrics in urban sustainability assessment and, by that, evaluate which ones are more relevant. This work has two clear goals: first of all, determine the adequacy of using certain metrics in the Swedish municipal context and, second, to cross analyse the existence of the current metrics in Swedish municipalities and regions’ sustainability strategies and assess their alignment with sustainability development. We are currently aiming to finalise the desktop research to move forward with the stakeholder involvement. We will keep you posted about the developments of this exciting project!

On 4 February 2020 InnovationQuarter and Cleantech Scandinavia signed a Memorandum of Understanding committing to intensifying the collaboration between the Nordic and Dutch cleantech ecosystems in the coming years. The collaboration is focused on supporting Dutch and Nordic companies in entering and accelerating their activities in each other’s markets, either for international collaboration, trade or establishment.

Cleantech Scandinavia and InnovationQuarter, together with their respective partners, have regularly partnered up to boost collaboration between the Dutch and Nordic cleantech ecosystems over the past year. In 2019 the organisations co-organised the Sustainable Building and Energy Systems Mission to Boston, and were involved the Dutch-Nordic Business Event connected to the Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona. During these events it became clear that a joint Dutch-Nordic presence helps businesses make more impact when entering a foreign market, but also that there is a lot of interest among entrepreneurs and clusters to increase innovation and business collaboration between Dutch and Nordic cleantech players.

To boost such collaboration, InnovationQuarter and Cleantech Scandinavia organised the Nordic Business Day on February 4 2020, where Dutch and Nordic entrepreneurs, clusters and governmental organisations exchanged market information and business experiences in the fields of smart & sustainable building, mobility and life sciences and health.  Moreover, they took this event as an opportunity to formalise and commit to a multiyear collaboration to connect the Nordic and Dutch cleantech ecosystems by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).

The goals of this MoU is to set up a multiyear collaboration (2020 2022) to connect the Nordic and Dutch cleantech ecosystems in order to

1. Promote collaboration between The Nordic and Dutch cleantech ecosystems, as well as the various players within them.
2. Support Dutch and Nordic companies in entering and accelerating their activities in each other’s markets, either for innovation, trade goals or establishment in respective markets.
3. Investigate possible future collaboration to target other foreign markets.

Cleantech Scandinavia and InnovationQuarter intend to realise the above in various manners:

1. Sharing of relevant market information;
2. Support each other’s network in entering their respective markets. For example by providing introducing companies to potential partners (matchmaking), guiding small groups of entrepreneurs in their respective regions, providing soft-landing services, etc.;
3. The organisation of various events in the Netherlands and the Nordics each year. These events will either involve bringing over a delegation to each other’s region, or be focussed on informing the ‘home market’ on the opportunities that exist in the other region.
4. Supporting Dutch and Nordic entrepreneurs in jointly entering foreign markets.

What’s coming up in 2020?

As part of their collaboration Cleantech Scandinavia and InnovationQuarter have the intention to contribute to the  following events:

1. Nordic Business Day, 4^th of February. Topics: Sustainable Building, Sustainable Mobility and Life Sciences & Health.
2. Dutch Sustainable Building Mission to Stockholm from 20 to 24 April (sign up before February 27, click here for more information and registration)
3. InnovationQuarter visits Energy Capital Day in Lund 12 13 May.
4. Dutch-Nordic Cleantech mission to Boston to be held in Boston in the autumn of 2020
5. Dutch/Nordic event at the Smart City expo in Barcelona in November 2020
6. Participation of Nordic Cleantech delegation at Cleantech Summit in Rotterdam in November 2020

Interested in participating in any of the above events? Or curious to learn more about the collaboration between InnovationQuarter and Cleantech Scandinavia? Contact Anne de Vries from InnovationQuarter or Toby Hörnlein from Cleantech Scandinavia.

Anne de Vries/ Project Manager Internationalisation
+31 6 2254 6065 / anne.devries@innovationquarter.nl

This year, the prizes stayed all in Sweden:

The winner of this edition of Nordic Cleantech Open is SurfCleaner (Sweden), with their unparalleled and proven solution to which is able to eliminate and separate a wide variety of pollutants from water surfaces.

The second place goes to Moving Floor (Sweden), who provide automatic cleaning for livestock through a system of self-cleaning floors, using modular endless belts and reducing water usage, air pollution, and antibiotic usage.

And the third place goes to Einride (Sweden), with their transportation as a service solution based on all-electric, autonomous vehicles, or “T-pod”. Using real-time traffic data, the T-pod adjusts its route to avoid congestions, optimizing battery use and delivery time.

Congratulations to all three companies for managing to impress the audience with their pitches! And thank you to all the Top10 companies for their hard work and dedication throughout the whole process. Surely we will be hearing more from you in the near future!