Shell Technology Ventures, Rockstart and YES!Delft today have launched the second edition of the New Energy Challenge, a competition for European start-ups offering innovative, low-carbon energy solutions. The competition aims to accelerate the development and implementation of breakthrough technologies. The winning start-up will receive a €100,000 convertible loan from Shell.Â
The New Energy Challenge 2017 invites European start-ups “to propose game-changing solutions that could contribute to shaping a low-carbon energy system for the future”. The period for submission of ideas runs until 19 July 2017.
The winners will be selected by an international jury and will be announced on 28 September at EnergyFest 2017, part of the Startup Fest event in Amsterdam taking place that week. The winning start-up will receive a €100,000 convertible loan and business advice from Shell Technology Ventures for at least one year. The other two winners will enter the accelerator programs of Rockstart & YES!Delft respectively and a cash prize to move their business forward.
YES!Delft is one of the leading tech incubators in Europe, offering graduates, scientists, engineers and professionals guidance in building successful technology companies. Rockstart is an incubator program started in Amsterdam in 2011, specializing in building entire innovation ecosystems around specific domains, such as Digital Health and Smart Energy.
Shell Technology Ventures (STV) is the corporate venture capital arm of Royal Dutch Shell. With major offices in Europe and the U.S., STV invests in technology companies active in oil and gas, renewable energy, new business models and IT. STV co-invests with other corporate investors, venture capital funds and angels and will invest in both early stage and late stage (growth capital) companies.
“We need integrated energy solutions that are effective, profitable and can survive at scale – preferably at global scale”
The three companies note that “over the coming decades, the world will need much more energy to meet growing demand to enable a decent quality of life for people across the world. We also need to produce all that energy while emitting much less CO2.” The energy industry, they say, “could play a crucial role in powering this progress. What we need to do in this century is to accelerate new business models and enable new innovative technologies.”
This is why last year they launched an annual competition for startup energy companies called New Energy Challenge. This year’s edition calls on ”start-ups working at the crossroads of integrated energy solutions, connected customers and smart energies, with the potential of contributing to a lower-carbon energy system”, to submit their ideas.
Geert van de Wouw, Manager for Technology Ventures at Shell’s New Energy business, says that “we believe in the possibility of a transition to a new energy mix, and that collaboration with startups and entrepreneurs will be essential to accelerating it.”
Freerk Bisschop, Director at Rockstart adds: “What we need to do in the next decades – and sooner rather than later – is to accelerate new business models and enable new innovative technologies that will shape the energy transition. We need integrated energy solutions that are effective, profitable and can survive at scale – preferably on a global scale.  That is what the jury of the New Energy Challenge will be looking for.”
According to Evert Jaap Lugt, Managing Director at YES!Delft, the challenge “brings together the best of both worlds: corporates and startups. We’re ready to support the best ideas all the way.”
Interested entrepreneurs can apply at www.newenergychallenge.com.
Editor’s Note
This is a sponsored announcement.