Berlin, 02 May 2023 – After PT1 – PropTech1 Ventures successfully completed the first closing of its second fund at 44 million euros this January, the independent venture capital platform for transformative real estate technologies has now started operations by making its first three investments in the startups Voltfang, Ontik and Climate X.
Voltfang is a multiple-award winning technology startup that repurposes used electric vehicle batteries to create energy storage systems for commercial real estate applications using Voltfang’s proprietary technology. By requalifying these used batteries and therefore turning them into a sustainable energy system, Voltfang is not only reducing waste and improving the environmental footprint of their customers like ALDI Nord, but at the same time also decreasing their costs. As the world increasingly shifts towards renewable energy sources, decentralized energy storage systems are crucial to manage the intermittency of renewable sources and stabilize grids, which opens up further attractive business models, as excess electricity can be fed into the grid at times of high prices. Europe’s energy storage market is set to multiply to 30 billion euros by 2027.
Ontik provides an operating system for the CFO of B2B merchants to better deliver trade credit programmes to their customers from the construction and building material industry where trade credit accounts for 75% of revenue. So far, the experience of trade credit is often slow and antiquated primarily due to the inefficient, manual processes. Ontik provides software to streamline trade credit programmes and create best-in-class experiences for their customers. According to UK government research, the construction sector is heavily under-capitalised – lending £1 to the construction sector leads to £4 of value creation. As a first mover in a completely undigitised market, Ontik will make credit more readily available to the entire sector, opening up the opportunity to high value generation and at the same time helping to increase construction capacity.
Climate X is a fast-growth global climate risk analytics provider, which helps companies become more resilient to the impacts of climate change. The innovative startup has created a digital “twin” of the Earth that simulates extreme weather events and how they can damage properties, infrastructure and assets. Its multiple award-winning tech platform projects the probability and severity of these events decades before they happen and provides clear data to leading financial institutions and commercial property firms worldwide to help protect their investments and assets. In parallel, the real estate industry is becoming increasingly aware and sensitive of the physical risk of its real asset holdings and future pipeline transactions. Climate X therefore helps mitigate mispricing risk for both buyers and sellers in the real estate industry by providing the forecast climate data up to 30 years into the future.
PT1 Managing Partner Anja Rath comments on the outlook for the future: “In the first fund vintage we have compiled a portfolio of 17 startups, thereof – according to our own assessment – four unicorn candidates and one total write-off so far. The second vintage is now following the same proven concept but is even starting from a higher level: Our deal flow and datapoints, our LP investor base as well as our team size and experience has increased manyfold.”
PT Managing Partner Nikolas Samios, who has recently been named ‘Head of the Year’ at the 2023 immobilienmanager awards, adds: “Furthermore, the current macroeconomic situation creates excellent investment opportunities. Real estate is facing an unprecedented, multidimensional change – the age of ‘we always did it this way’ is finally over, and it was always wise to invest when valuations are low compared to previous peaks.”
The founders of all new investments presented their companies at the Family Day VI, PT1’s annual main event. A 3-minute video impression of the event can be found here.
