EnBW New Ventures, the strategic investment arm of Germany-headquartered renewable energy producer EnBW, anticipates significant advances in infrastructure technology over the next decade, managing director Crispin Leick told Global Corporate Venturing.
The unit runs a 12-strong portfolio which was boosted by two investments last week, when it led a $6m round for Germany-based augmented reality (AR) technology developer Holo-light that included Bayern Kapital and Future Energy Ventures.
Holo-light is not a traditional investment for a corporate venturer in the energy industry. Its software enables users to work with 3D designs in AR but it has also created a product that facilitates remote AR rendering, and Leick cited the potential for the technology across the workplace.
“The underlying idea, actually, on the high level, is that we believe that augmented reality will change basically all workplaces, including in the industrial environment,” Leick said. “This will be integrated in many, many different use cases, and that makes it quite attractive for us as an investor.”
EnBW New Ventures also joined Helen Ventures – a subsidiary of energy utility Helen Group – Emerald Technology Ventures, 360 Capital and i5invest in a $8.7m series A round for Enlight, an Austria-based developer of energy trading software for the daily/intraday markets.
“What they actually do is give operators access to the intraday trading markets in order to enable them, in real time, to change how they sell and buy the electricity [generated by decentralised] assets,” Leick explained.
“This is basically the future of electricity markets. And why intraday? Because all these [decentralised plants], especially renewables, are fluctuating a lot, and this is why Enspired is offering this as a fully automated solution. It is like a robo trader for fluctuating, decentralised new assets in the power market.
The venture capital market has of course been soaring over the past 18 months, but Leick suggested the progress of some of EnBW’s target areas has been influenced more by advances in digital technology that enable the technology to get to market more quickly. Infrastructure technology development has been comparatively slow, but this could well change in the near future.
“Our corporate mother, EnBW is an infrastructure operator and owner, so they are basically in their second transformation,” Leick said.
“They started as a utility, then they transformed into a renewable utility with strong grid applications, and now the second transformation is to an infrastructure operator and owner. And when we look forward over the next 10 years, we think that this will be the decade of infrastructure, there will be huge investments.”
The move will be driven by the need to restructure grids so that customers can get easier access to renewable energy, facilitating technologies like advanced batteries and energy management software, but also new digital technology that will connect the user to the grid more effectively.
EnBW New Ventures operates out of a €100m ($113m) evergreen fund and there are currently no plans to increase its size, but it has been a successful year for the unit, which exited portfolio companies Lumenaza in June and Replex in October. EnBW itself bought a majority stake in a third, DZ-4, and the fund was the first German corporate VC to qualify for the Diversity VC Standard.
The unit is hoping to seal one more investment before the end of the month, and in the short term, Leick identified electrification and mobility as areas of interest, as EnBW is one of Germany’s largest operators of electric vehicle charging stations and the technology is theoretically easy to scale quickly, though it is not interested in more futuristic technologies like electric aircraft.
Photo courtesy of LinkedIn.
