Author: Tatjana Anderer

Wiesbaden/Berlin — BMH Betei­li­gungs-Manage­ment­ge­sell­schaft Hessen mbH and Compa­nisto GmbH have jointly inves­ted in Office for Micro Climate Culti­va­tion GmbH (OMC°C). The Frank­furt-based startup is deve­lo­ping a flexi­ble and loca­tion-inde­pen­dent product system that uses free-stan­ding verti­cal green spaces to improve climate resi­li­ence and air quality in urban centers. OMC°C will use the new finan­cial resour­ces to further deve­lop its product and service, prepare for market entry and further expand its team.

The company OMC°C was foun­ded by Nicola Statt­mann and Carlotta Ludig at the end of 2021 with the aim of coun­ter­ac­ting the incre­asing heating of urban centers on a large scale and in a timely manner. Their inno­va­tive “Climate Farming System” gree­ning system uses annual clim­bing plants that grow more than seven meters in height each year on free-stan­ding modu­les in a very short time. The resul­ting “plant sails” have a stan­dard size of 18 square meters and are capa­ble of cooling their surroun­dings by up to 2.5°C. Each module has six plant sails and gene­ra­tes 270 cubic meters of fresh air per day with its total sail area of 108 square meters. In addi­tion, one module can store around 0.5 tons of CO2 per year. The modu­les, which can be comple­ted in series, consist of a light­weight support struc­ture, substrate contai­ners, biode­gra­da­ble, hurri­cane-proof tendril nets and an auto­ma­ted irri­ga­tion system. They can be freely posi­tio­ned and cast shade where it is needed. Unlike trees, the modu­les do not require any earth space, as they are secu­red above ground with compa­ra­tively narrow screw foun­da­ti­ons or precast foun­da­tion elements.

The Climate Farming system is thus — in contrast to estab­lished gree­ning solu­ti­ons, espe­ci­ally facade and roof gree­ning — almost infi­ni­tely scalable and signi­fi­cantly more cost-effi­ci­ent. OMC°C also offers its custo­mers a one-stop solu­tion: in addi­tion to provi­ding the modu­les, the startup supports them with expert advice as well as with site plan­ning and then takes over all the neces­sary services — from sowing the seeds in the spring to coll­ec­ting the over­grown nets in the fall — as part of a green-as-a-service model. The Climate Farming system is prima­rily aimed at cities and muni­ci­pa­li­ties as well as compa­nies, espe­ci­ally from the real estate indus­try, which, for exam­ple, want to reduce energy consump­tion. want or need to reduce their carbon foot­print, lower air condi­tio­ning costs, or comply with new regulations.

OMC°C has alre­ady recei­ved seve­ral awards for its inno­va­tive system, inclu­ding third place at the Frank­furt Foun­ders’ Prize 2022, as well as various grants, inclu­ding from Hessen-Ideen, Frank­furt frischt auf and push! The project is also supported by, among others, the Frank­furt Econo­mic Deve­lo­p­ment Corpo­ra­tion, the German Weather Service and the Sencken­berg Society for Nature Rese­arch. The previous mile­sto­nes of deve­lo­ping the stand struc­ture and rank net, test­ing the irri­ga­tion system and substra­tes will now be follo­wed by the test­ing of a first proto­type in the summer of 2023 in a real labo­ra­tory in Frankfurt.

“We are on track to reach produc­tion readi­ness in the third quar­ter of 2023 and to move forward with the produc­tion setup. We plan to launch the product in Octo­ber of this year,” said Nicola Statt­mann and Carlotta Ludig, foun­ders of OMC°C. “We’re exci­ted to now be able to work with our new part­ners to make down­towns in parti­cu­lar gree­ner and more livable.”

“Espe­ci­ally for metro­po­li­tan areas, we have never needed inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons in the areas of climate protec­tion, climate resi­li­ence and urban biodi­ver­sity so urgen­tly. We are firmly convin­ced that OMC°C’s gree­ning system is one of the tech­no­lo­gies that will sustain­ably combine econo­mic and social added value,” says Jürgen ten Elsen, respon­si­ble invest­ment mana­ger at BMH, which mana­ges the Hessen Kapi­tal III (EFRE) GmbH fund, among others.

“The forward-looking busi­ness model as well as the strong and comple­men­tary network of OMC°C convin­ced us alre­ady at the first cont­act. In the further due dili­gence, we were convin­ced not only by the team, but also by the content of the offer: In our opinion, the gree­ning of urban infra­struc­tures carries not only imme­diate local bene­fits, but also a soci­ally rele­vant added value for an incre­asing aware­ness of climate protec­tion. The concept convin­ced not only Compa­nisto, but also the Compa­nists, who inves­ted in OMC°C with capi­tal and exper­tise,” adds Chris­toph Schwei­zer, Part­ner and Head of Invest­ment at Companisto.

About BMH

BMH Betei­li­gungs-Manage­ment­ge­sell­schaft Hessen mbH, based in Wies­ba­den, was foun­ded in 2001 and is a wholly owned subsi­diary of Landes­bank Hessen-Thürin­gen Giro­zen­trale (Helaba). Through Wirt­schafts- und Infra­struk­tur­bank Hessen (WIBank), BMH is actively invol­ved in the econo­mic deve­lo­p­ment acti­vi­ties of the State of Hesse. As a medium-sized invest­ment and venture capi­tal company, BMH bund­les public invest­ment inte­rests and finan­cing instru­ments for early-stage, growth and medium-sized compa­nies in Hesse. BMH curr­ently mana­ges seven invest­ment funds with a total inves­ted invest­ment volume of around 125 million euros. Since its foun­da­tion, BMH has inves­ted in a total of more than 500 compa­nies. The main areas of invest­ment include the soft­ware & IT, life scien­ces, mecha­ni­cal and plant engi­nee­ring, indus­trial goods, profes­sio­nal services and e‑commerce sectors. www.bmh-hessen.de

About Compa­nisto

Compa­nisto is the market-leading private inves­tor network in the D‑A-CH region and has been a leading venture capi­ta­list for startup invest­ments for seven years in a row. To date, around €191.1 million has been commit­ted via Compa­nisto in over 277 finan­cing rounds. Since 2018, Compa­nisto has expan­ded its network of curr­ently 138,000 private inves­tors with a digi­tally orga­ni­zed Busi­ness Angel Club. Around 2,000 busi­ness angels invest in the equity of compa­nies via Compa­nisto with invest­ments start­ing at EUR 10,000. The invest­ment process and invest­ment manage­ment were fully digitized.

Munich — Climate tech start-up Reverion raises €8.5 million to acce­le­rate produc­tion of its flexi­ble power plants. UVC Part­ners, Green Gene­ra­tion Fund, Extan­tia Capi­tal, Doral Energy-Tech Ventures and biome­thane trader Land­wärme GmbH are among the inves­tors.

The fresh capi­tal will be used to expand produc­tion of 100 kilo­watt and 500 kilo­watt biogas power plants. In addi­tion, Reverion will receive €12 million in rese­arch funding, which will be used for further deve­lo­p­ment of the equip­ment. The start-up is a spin-off of the Tech­ni­cal Univer­sity of Munich (TUM) and parti­ci­pa­ted in the XPRENEURS incu­ba­tion program of Unter­neh­mer­TUM, Europe’s largest center for inno­va­tion and start-ups.

With Reverion’s new tech­no­logy, biogas plant opera­tors can increase their reve­nue by up to 400 percent from the same amount of biomass. The company’s upco­ming Series A finan­cing aims to further increase produc­tion and posi­tion itself for market demand for giga­watt-scale rene­wa­ble capa­city.

100 percent more effi­ci­ency and no harmful CO2 emis­si­ons

Reverion plans to replace as many conven­tio­nal power plants as possi­ble world­wide with its tech­no­logy. The first target market is exis­ting biogas plants. Today, these are powered by gas engi­nes that achieve only a very low effi­ci­ency of 40 percent at most, offer limi­ted storage opti­ons, and emit milli­ons of tons of CO2 annu­ally. Reverion’s modu­lar power plants, on the other hand, double the effi­ci­ency of elec­tri­city gene­ra­tion from 40 to 80 percent compared to conven­tio­nal tech­no­logy. Since the small power plants can also run “back­wards” (rever­si­bly), a rene­wa­ble natu­ral gas substi­tute or green hydro­gen can be gene­ra­ted and stored from a tempo­rary surplus of wind and solar power to make the grid more flexi­ble. Another advan­tage is that Reverion’s modern power plants can be opera­ted CO2-nega­tively when using biogas.

The paten­ted carbon-nega­tive fuel cell tech­no­logy has alre­ady found nume­rous custo­mers today. “We alre­ady have pre-orders of over 60 million euros that we want to fulfill,” explains Felix Fischer, co-foun­der and COO. “Our goal is to break even by ente­ring volume produc­tion and rapidly scaling the number of units ship­ped.“

EU Commis­sion targets acce­le­rate Reverion’s market entry

Rapid action is also requi­red to ensure that Germany can achieve the EU Commission’s targets for the energy tran­si­tion (Net Zero Act) in the fore­seeable future. Reverion can make an important contri­bu­tion to achie­ving these goals. “Our tech­no­logy addres­ses four of the eight curr­ently stated goals: Impro­ving energy storage, expan­ding elec­tro­ly­sis proces­ses and fuel cells, incre­asing the use of biogas and biome­thane, and carbon storage. We are ther­e­fore confi­dent that a rapid and compre­hen­sive market entry will give Germany and the EU a compe­ti­tive edge in highly flexi­ble and carbon-nega­tive energy supply,” explains Stephan Herr­mann, co-foun­der and CEO.

Estab­lished indus­tries must coope­rate

Access to capi­tal is para­mount when ente­ring mass produc­tion, and close colla­bo­ra­tion with estab­lished indus­try is criti­cal to success. This is exactly where UVC Part­ners can assist as an expe­ri­en­ced hard­ware inves­tor. “We looked at various start-ups in this field. The foun­ding team of Reverion convin­ced us because they have deve­lo­ped an outstan­ding tech­no­logy over the last years and successfully tested it in a pilot plant. With our large network toge­ther with Unter­neh­mer­TUM, we can bring part­ners, suppli­ers and exper­tise to the table to further scale the tech­no­logy,” explains Johan­nes von Borries, Mana­ging Direc­tor at UVC Partners.

About UVC Partners

UVC Part­ners is a Munich and Berlin-based early-stage venture capi­tal firm inves­t­ing in Euro­pean B2B start-ups in the fields of enter­prise soft­ware, indus­trial tech­no­lo­gies and mobi­lity. The fund gene­rally invests between €0.5 and €10 million at the outset and up to €30 million in total per company. The port­fo­lio compa­nies bene­fit from the exten­sive invest­ment and exit expe­ri­ence of the manage­ment team as well as from the close coope­ra­tion with Unter­neh­mer­TUM, Europe’s leading inno­va­tion and start-up center. With over 400 employees and more than 100 indus­try part­ners, Unter­neh­mer­TUM can draw on many years of expe­ri­ence in buil­ding young compa­nies. This colla­bo­ra­tion gives UVC Part­ners the oppor­tu­nity to provide start­ups with unique access to talent, indus­try clients and other finan­cial partners.

About Reverion

Reverion GmbH is a spin-off of the Tech­ni­cal Univer­sity of Munich. The start-up is deve­lo­ping the tech­no­logy, which was successfully vali­da­ted as part of a rese­arch project, to commer­cial matu­rity and is marke­ting it as a plant manu­fac­tu­rer. The contai­ner-based plants can replace conven­tio­nal gas engi­nes with their low effi­ci­en­cies and can also be opera­ted with hydro­gen in addi­tion to biogas. In addi­tion, plants produce pure CO2 as a bypro­duct of elec­tri­city gene­ra­tion, so they can operate CO2-nega­tively. In parti­cu­lar, howe­ver, they are rever­si­ble, so that surplus rene­wa­ble elec­tri­city from wind and photo­vol­taics can also be conver­ted into hydro­gen or methane as a substi­tute for natu­ral gas in the same plants. The tech­no­logy ther­e­fore combi­nes all the essen­tial core elements — increased effi­ci­ency, CO2-nega­tive opera­tion and large-scale seaso­nal energy storage — that are still needed for successful imple­men­ta­tion of the energy tran­si­tion, in a single plant. www.reverion.com