Cleantech Invest becomes Loudspring
Cleantech Invest has announced that it will release a strategy update later in November. We have today sent out an invitation to EGM that will on 29th of November decide on the proposed name change. Since the name change portion of the strategy update requires shareholder meeting approval and becomes public on EGM invitation, we will hereby be formally announcing that part of our strategy update separately.
Cleantech Invest is rebranding its name to Loudspring. The name “Loudspring” takes inspiration from Rachel Carson’s famous book The Silent Spring. In her book Carson focused on the use of environmentally harmful pesticides such as DDT that was killing birds, hence the title silent spring, which is what the earth was facing if development would have continued. A related vision is that of a loud spring where nature and biodiversity thrives. The name matches our vision of maximizing our positive environmental impact and also encourages and reminds us to use our own voices and actions to best achieve that vision as well as to celebrate life on Earth. It gives us permission to shout.
In order to have a greater impact going forward we have decided to change our company’s name in order to free ourselves from some of the the associations of “cleantech” and some of the limitations of a standard investment firm.
Chairman of the board Lassi Noponen:
“We believe that in relevant technology area there is no room for new technologies that do not optimize resource utilization and technologies which are not inherently clean. This shift in global reasoning has had the result of eventually making “clean technologies” a redundant statement, because all new technology must be clean to be competitive. While we will continue to support clean technologies, we have chosen to drop the term cleantech from our name going forward.”
Lassi Noponen continues:
“The second part of our former name, “Invest”, simply does not optimally reflect what we do. Sure, we have invested in our companies and will make investments also in the future, but investing is since quite some time not our only activity. Growing companies that solve global challenges is clearly one of our core activities and we want to emphasise it. Our involvement in the portfolio companies has steadily increased over the years and we intend to step up this trend.”
CEO Alexander Bigge Lidgren:
“The shift in mindsets to a cleantech paradigm has, by and large, already happened. The policy risk has clearly shifted to the fossil side of the table. Owning shares in companies destroying the environment is seen as simply bad business. Consumer awareness is at all time high and it shows in purchasing decisions. The cleantech space is becoming ingrained into the respective markets companies operate on. The latest explosion in renewable energy, sharing economy, electric vehicles and tech related to it, second hand sales, meat alternatives, and energy efficiency solutions, to mention a few, has however not been credited to the cleantech sector, which somewhat simplified tends to still be associated with long lead times and high capital requirements. Our companies recent revenue records speak for themself in this regard as they, alongside many other solutions focusing on energy and resource efficiency, tend to have low capital need and are able to grow sales quickly on global markets almost from the start. We understand that our name is at this intersection slowing us down rather than helping us accelerate and see this as a prefect time to make the switch.”
We will continue to focus on growing capital light, highly scalable and high impact businesses and the Cleantech Invest name will remain under our Loudspring brand. As we embrace this new identity moving forward, our goal is not to stop doing what were doing, but take a brooader perspective on the market and what we do which will allow us to actively do more to increase our impact.
Cleantech invest has evolved using flexibility as its strength and its operations have now outgrown the limitations of its name. Imbedded also in the Loudspring DNA is embracing of constant change.
We focus on improving our ecosystems and intend on leaving our mark. Through our name and identity change we will take a new start, strengthen our identity, global ambition and appetite for disruption.
Contact information:
Alexander Lidgren, Managing Director of Cleantech Invest Plc. Tel. 46 73 660 1007, alexander.lidgren@cleantechinvest.com
Access Partners Oy, Certified Advisor. Tel. 358 9 682 9500
Cleantech Invest in brief
Cleantech Invest is the largest cleantech accelerator in the Nordic region, boasting several fast growing and high impact companies that solve global challenges. The portfolio companies are active in energy- and resource efficiency as well as decentralized renewable energy and are based in Finland, Sweden and Germany. The company management consists of company builders and investors who have been active within the cleantech space for over a decade.The company is listed on First North Finland under the ticker CLEAN and on First North Stockholm under the ticker CLEANT A.
www.cleantechinvest.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cleantech-invest-oy
Twitter: @CleantechInves1
IG: @cleantechinvest
FB: www.facebook.com/cleantechinvest/
