The Energy Efficiency & Infrastructure sector dominated this year's Tech Tour Cleantech Summit. Tech Tour’s hand-picked selection of the 25 most promising European Cleantech companies presented to the investment community over two very busy days in Geneva on July 6 and 7. This biannual event is among Europe’s finest Cleantech events of this kind, with the organisers taking a proactive role in promoting networking which extended to the Gala Dinner aboard a Lac Leman cruiser.

The selected companies represented all the foremost cleantech categories, including energy generation (eg Sweden’s Cortus AB), energy efficiency and infrastructure (eg UK’s KiWi Power), materials (eg Germany’s AZZURRO Semiconductors AG), energy storage (Highview Power, UK), clean transportation (eg CPM Compact Power Motors, Germany), and water and waste water (Ireland’s SCFI).

The Keynote speech was delivered by Sir David King, Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and Business, Oxford (formerly the chief scientific advisor to the UK Government). In his speech, “ Energy, the Environment and Fukushima”, Sir David reiterated his faith in nuclear energy, citing the fact that the 16 reactors on the Fukushima site shut down within two minutes of the powerful earthquake, and had the subsequent 16m high tsunami not overwhelmed the 5.6m high defences, there would have been no crisis. A key point of his speech was that by focussing on carbon reduction, Europe can create a new growth path, generating prosperity and employment as more people are recruited into the new energy sector. Lean, green manufacturing will revive Europe’s economy and rebuild the link between science and manufacturing (although governments must get their policies right, he added).

 

The selection committee comprised of venture investors including:

Reflecting the current trends in cleantech, companies selected to present this year were concentrated in Energy Efficiency & Infrastructure - with seven of the presenting companies coming from this sector. Energy generation was also an important sector, with six of the presenting companies involved in energy generation - followed by clean transportation. The full list of presenting companies is in the following table.

 

The event is held every two years. Many of the companies selected to present in 2009 included the following companies, many of which went on to raise money from investors: