WHEB Ventures achieves Third Closing of its Latest Clean Technology Venture Fund and expands its German Operation
WHEB Ventures (WHEB), one of Europe’s leading clean technology specialist venture capital firms and the first dedicated clean technology VC firm with offices in London and Munich, today announces the third closing of its second clean technology fund, WHEB Ventures Private Equity 2 LP, at £90 million (€105 million).
WHEB’s target for this fund’s final closing is £150 million (€175 million) by the end of this year.
The fund, which has already attracted substantial support from family offices, high net worth individuals and financial institutions, now also counts among its investors the ERP-EIF Fund of Funds and the LfA-EIF Fund of Funds which between them have invested £21 million (€25 million). These are two German state funds of funds managed by the European Investment Fund (EIF).
Simultaneously, WHEB has expanded its office in Munich, Germany, with existing Partner Jörg Sperling being joined by Dr Alexander Domin as an Associate and Thilo von Selchow and Dr Mike Mattner as Venture Partners.
Dr. Domin joins from The Boston Consulting Group and holds a PhD in chemical engineering from Cambridge University. He was formerly the Co-Founder and a Director of Enval Ltd, a company commercialising technologies for value extraction from packaging waste in Cambridge, UK. He also holds B.S. (hons.) and M.S. degrees in Biological Sciences from Stanford University in California.
Dr. Mattner has considerable experience in the clean technology sector, completing his PhD in chemistry under the former Chair of the Nobel Prize winner E.O. Fischer at TU München. He has wide experience in business management as well as technology transfer and previously managed the financing and business model of Europe’s biggest technology project, the Galileo satellite navigation program.
Von Selchow is CEO and President of ZMD AG, a fast growing global provider of analogue mixed signal semiconductors which he turned around during the last decade. His extensive business experience together with his deep knowledge of micro electronics, which is playing an increasing role in driving the development of new clean technology energy efficiency products, will add considerable value to WHEB.
Meanwhile, Max-Arnold Köttgen has also been appointed to WHEB’s Advisory Board. Köttgen has an impressive track record in the clean technology sector, particularly in the areas of waste and recycling. He was formerly the CEO of OTTO Group Europe, the largest producer of waste containers in Europe.
James McNaught-Davis, WHEB’s Managing Partner, said: “For some time we have been surprised that there was no cleantech specialist venture capital firm on the ground in Germany, Europe’s second largest market for cleantech venture and growth capital after the UK. Our pioneering move into the German market has now been vindicated by this strong support from EIF and the German Federal and Bavarian States through the ERP-EIF Dachfonds and the LfA-EIF Dachfonds. We are especially pleased to have been able to attract such high calibre businessmen to our team in Germany and we are very excited about the potential returns to our fund investors of our German strategy.”
Dörte Höppner, CEO of BVK (the German Venture Capital Association) welcomed WHEB Ventures as a new member this week and confirms that WHEB Ventures is their first international member focused exclusively on cleantech.
Jörg Sperling said “With this closing and the enlarged team in Munich, we now have both sufficient capital and the best possible people in place to take full advantage of our strong, high quality cleantech deal flow in Germany.”
Portfolio News:
- Existing WHEB Fund 2 investments include AMCS in Limerick, Ireland which provides its integrated technology solution to waste haulers in Ireland, Scandinavia, the UK and now the USA, to enable them to transform their operational efficiency and facilitate municipal responses to land fill regulation. AMCS recently secured a contract with a major European waste management company worth £8 to £10 million (€9 to 12 million) to install its product in several hundred commercial refuse collection trucks.
- Meanwhile, Watson Brown , a rubber devulcanisation and recycling company in which WHEB invested £2.18 million last year, is installing its proprietary reprocessing equipment at its first facility in Berlin.
WHEB Ventures is supported by the European Union through the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP).
