Sunuru, the global winner of Cleantech Challenge 2012
High-tech start-up Sunuru had the honor to represent the Netherlands at the finals of global Cleantech Challenge in London. Last year, the London Business School organized the 4th edition of this annual competition that promotes sustainable technologies and entrepreneurship.
Sunuru, situated at the YES!Delft incubator, entered the competition in the Netherlands, where YES!Delft students and Financial Study Association Rotterdam (FSR) organized the national finals for the first time. After winning the Dutch competition, Sunuru was granted €3.000 and tickets to the global finals in London. There they faced competition from nine other winning teams representing countries from Belgium, Denmark, Italy, Britain, China and the United States.
The Cleantech Challenge is far from an ordinary business plan competition. It is a real challenge where a main question must be addresses in a ten-minute presentation in front of a jury consisting of investors and executives of multinationals.This year’s challenge was to answer the question: “Who is you company critically dependent on for a successful launch?”. The teams had to explain to the jury how they would convince this particular actor to help them. After an introduction to the competition, the teams entered a 24 hours ‘bootcamp’ to prepare their strategic answer. During that period of time, they could consult experienced coaches for additional help and guidance.
Global winner Sunuru develops innovative, highly customizable, lightweight solar power solutions. The construction makes it easy to install solar panels under any angle and above, onto or in front things. Due to the patented support system, Sunuru boosts revenues up to 40%. Your parking lot, building façade or driveway can be turned into a source of green energy within a day.
The Dutch CleanTech Challenge Finals 2012
On March 30th 2012, 8 teams competed to become the 1st winner of the Dutch Cleantech Challenge. Jointly founded by Delft and Rotterdam and aimed at building multidisciplinary teams of dutch students. A competition especially for entrepreneurs interested in clean technologies. Not only to make the world a better place, but also to prove that this field offers many appealing opportunities.
We received much positive feedback and look back on a great final day! All teams did an excellent job and the progress they have made after the McKinsey event was very impressive. The enthusiasm among the teams was excellent and the atmosphere between the teams unprecedented! The organisation wants to thank every team that participated in the CleanTech Challenge 2012! Then, much gratitude to Hero Prins and Ad van Wijk for their advice and great stories and in particular to our though judges. You have put our teams to the test with your experience and expertise. Congratulations to the three teams Sunuru, Empower People and aQuista for winning venture capital to take additional steps in developing their ideas.
Looking back on last year's Cleantech Challenge, we can definitely say the Cleantech Challenge was there to stay. We received many innovative ideas with a lot of potential and therefore the standards were very high. We wish all the teams the best of luck with the further development of their ideas!
