The product must be competitive from day one, and the business model must not rely on a green premium - Martin Kröner, Partner at GET Fund 

Martin Kröner is a Partner at GET Fund, an impact venture capital investor powering Green European Tech startups.

The fund supports innovators with scalable businesses and significant potential to contribute to a more sustainable future from early to growth stage, across energy, food and agriculture, manufacturing, buildings, and mobility. Some of the most interesting technologies Martin invested in include Residential battery storage company Sonnen (acquired by Shell) and 3D printing Company Luxexcel (acquired by Meta).

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Martin entered the cleatech ecosystem as co-founder of a VC-backed bio-energy startup in 2007, and in 2011 joined one of the investors of the startup as partner.

“To know both sides, the startup-CEO role as well as the investor/board member role helps to connect both stakeholder groups.”

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When looking at investing in tech startups versus green tech startups, Martin says that one of the main challenges is related to identifying scalable business models.

“This was one of the main learnings of the early days of cleantech investing around 2005-2015. More concrete, business models, which rely on project development, are in our view not a good fit for VC investments: long development and execution cycles, the complexity of multi-stakeholders projects, and the scaling risk are just a few aspects. “

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Martin thinks that we already have the fundamental technologies available in order to make the shift to a more sustainable society - solutions for the energy, mobility, or agriculture & food sector.

“What we need to deploy are proven technologies in combination with smart business models, e.g. the combination of hardware and software for distributed energy devices such as batteries storage or heat pumps.”

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Furthermore, when launching a green tech startups, entrepreneurs should keep something critical in mind:

“The product must be competitive from day one, and the business model must not rely on a green premium.”

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Besides investing in startups, Martin has served and continues to serve as a board member for multiple companies and has seen first hand some common challenges and similarities between green tech startups and emphasizes how important trust is.

“A trustful relationship between all stakeholders – management, board members, and shareholders – is of essence for a seamless cooperation and an effective and fast value creation. Building up trust requires continuous effort, consistent action and the definition of goals, which are agreed by all stakeholders.”

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Last but not least, we wanted to know what truly grabs Martin’s attention during a pitch:

“The interaction with the management team and a clear message of the USP of the startup.”

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Thank you, Martin Kröner!