Helge Daebel is one of Europe’s most experienced and knowledgeable water technology investors. He is an investment director at Emerald Technology Ventures, the Zurich-based clean-tech investment company, whose third fund is backed by corporations including Evonik, Unilever, Volvo and ABB, all of which have their own in-house corporate venturing units.
How do you work with your corporate limited partners (lps –investors)? Do they have the right to co-invest in your deals?
Yes, we provide our LPs with co-investment rights and often do act as a facilitator given our access to both deal companies and corporate investors. This has worked very well in the past.
Internal adoption of the technology or product developed by the portfolio company, joint development of products and services, and international market access.
To what extent do they use you as just a window on innovation – a relatively inexpensive technology monitoring service?
The starting point is that window, but a big value is seen in our assessment of the opportunities visible through that window. This judgment is a result of our past and current activities at the interface of technology companies, industrial markets and international corporations.
Mainly strategic, but as a VC, we are driven by financial performance – as we provide strategic insights to corporates we also leverage these relationships to drive superior returns.
What are the comparative advantages of a multi-corporate VC, such as you, over a straight corporate venturer – a proprietary VC unit of a large corporation?
We see these two structures as complementary to each other. We strongly believe that investing in funds provides corporates with many
How has clean-tech investing changed over the past 10 years? How has emerald strategy changed accordingly?
Some prominent failures and the financial crisis have led to a change in the funding of VC activities. Historically, a significant portion of VC funding came from institutional investors. In 2007, about 40% of funding came from insurance companies, banks, pension funds and other asset managers, while government agencies contributed a mere 10%. In response to the financial crisis, institutional investors have dramatically cut back on their alternative investment allocation and, in particular, on venture capital. Overall funding fell from €6.2bn in 2007 to €4.1bn, and today, government agencies make up almost 60% of venture funding, a trend which is dramatically changing the VC landscape.
Government agencies typically have multiple objectives. While they seek financial returns, their primary purpose is often one of economic development. After the 2008 financial crisis and the resulting soaring unemployment, government agencies took on the vital role of directly or indirectly supporting small and medium-sized enterprises. On the surface, these goals appear quite compatible with those of venture capital – VCs also invest in growing small and medium-sized enterprises, although their top priority is generating financial returns.
But if you take a deeper look, important, potentially incompatible, differences become apparent. Government funds, for one thing, are restricted by geographic boundaries drawn by government agencies’ jurisdictions. Meanwhile, VCs have historically selected investment locations based on their familiarity with the culture and legal structure, their ease of access to the locations and other a political reasons. The increasing dependence of VCs on government money is changing where investments are being made – and which geographies are getting the most VC money.
What does this mean for venture capital investing? Clearly, VCs will consider the amount of funding available in a region when evaluating potential investments. In other words, they will necessarily end up focusing on regions with more direct and indirect government funding. In those areas, competition for deals will heat up.
Increased competition may not be a bad thing. While it might inflate the prices of the deals, investor interest in follow-on rounds will likely lead to more up rounds – or deals in which startups are valued higher than in previous rounds – creating the potential for more attractive returns earlier in the fund’s life. Perhaps parts of Europe will develop into hubs of venture activity like Silicon Valley.
At the same time, areas without government money will suffer – even if they enjoy inherent competitive advantages – because VCs will have less of an incentive to chase those deals.
Until institutional investors return to normal levels of VC funding, however, governmental agencies’ influence will increase. As with all trends, this brings opportunities to those who adapt to the changing landscape. We expect clusters of venture investing to emerge, which will result in a concentration of well-financed startups equipped to attract the talent they need to lead them to growth and profitability. And, ultimately, that growth and profitability will create jobs and boost economic development, just as the government agencies intended.
How has VC investing in water technology changed? How can a VC engage in such a capital-intensive sector?
Capital-intensive companies at an early stage do face difficulties in fund raising. At the same time, VC investors largely moved to growth-stage investments. Emerald continues to invest in early to late-stage companies as we see numerous opportunities in this space and have the opportunity to leverage our corporate network. Plus, the investment terms have become much more attractive. We look for easily scalable products and related business models, add selected co-investors and carefully manage investment reserves.
More critical mass has been created both in terms of market intelligence services and of dedicated capital. Dealflow has improved drastically, not only quantitatively but, more importantly, qualitatively – technologies and business acumen. And although the water sector is still not a fast mover, I would argue that adoption cycles are decreasing – examples being smart water grids, membrane-based treatment and upstream oil and gas.
Nonetheless, one needs to continue to
be very selective, as many dimensions need to fit for a VC investment, and capital intensity is just one of them.