1st July 2020 – Award-winning start-up e-peas continues to underline its reputation as the go-to supplier of advanced energy harvesting solutions, having just completed its latest funding round.
With ever increasing demand for its ground-breaking technology, a rapidly expanding sales pipeline to attend to, plus exciting innovations under development, the company has raised an additional Euro 8 million worth of investment. This financial injection has been led by Partech and Airbus Ventures, with KBC Focus Fund, W.IN.G, Noshaq Ventures, LeanSquare, Nivelinvest and Vives also contributing. By leveraging the raised funds, e-peas will be able to accelerate the introduction of new products and intensify the market penetration of its existing products, as well as strengthening its commercial presence worldwide by opening more offices.
In the future, society will need to shift towards energy sources that have less ecological impact. Tens of billions of connected IoT and edge computing devices are now starting to be deployed and activity will keep on ramping up in the decades ahead. Reliance on disposable batteries in this context is simply impractical - with heavy network maintenance costs being incurred (as depleted batteries will need replacing periodically), along with huge damage to the environment.
e-peas is uniquely positioned within this sector, serving as a one stop shop for customers’ energy harvesting requirements and enabling their hardware to be powered indefinitely. The company is successfully addressing opportunities in industrial, home/building automation, agriculture, health monitoring, smart metering and other sectors. Over the last 3 years, it has been continually broadening the scope of its Ambient Energy Manager (AEM) product line. This now covers solar, thermal, vibration and RF methods for extracting energy from IoT devices’ surroundings - thereby making them completely energy autonomous. The imminent introduction of ultra-low power processing and sensing solutions will bolster the e-peas portfolio still further.
Quote Partech
Romain Lavault, General Partner at Partech: “Since our initial investment in 2017, we have been incredibly impressed by how Geoffroy and Julien have transformed a small R&D company into a recognized leader in low power IoT and edge computing with prestigious clients around the world. Geoffroy and Julien have also put the company in scale-up mode with the arrival of very experienced talents like Jean-Paul Bardyn and Christian Ferrier, have quadrupled the size of the team, and have developed an active commercial pipeline worth 500M$ over 3 continents. We are proud to be supporting e-peas again on their journey to make the world run battery-free.”
Quote Airbus Ventures
Matthieu Repellin, Investment Manager at Airbus Ventures: "With its exceptional low-power ICs, e-peas is a key attractive partner for all those considering the design and deployment of energy-efficient autonomous devices at scale. e-peas has been a model in terms of execution and reliability. We are thrilled to continue supporting this outstanding European team through its fast-accelerating journey."
Quote KBC Focus Fund
Nuno Carvalho, Investment Director at KBC Focus Fund: “At KBC, we invest in companies in the DeepTech ecosystem of Belgium and its neighbouring countries that have the potential to become global players. e-peas is one such golden nugget. e-peas makes edge device batteries live forever by solving the critical aspects of energy harvesting and energy efficiency. Their unique combination of state-of-the-art power management and ultra-low-power microcontroller chips will thus pave the road towards mass adoption of IoT edge devices. We are excited to support further market development of this transformational technology via the network and expertise of the KBC Group.”
Quote W.IN.G
Olivier Vanderijst, CEO at SRIW: “As early public investor in e-peas, W.IN.G is happy to support the growth of the company. This new financing will enable e-peas to leverage the R&D to scale high volume applications in the coming years. We are also pleased to welcome on board Noshaq and Nivelinvest as public investors. This investment is exactly in line with our common strategy to develop Deep Tech scale up in Wallonia.”
Quote LeanSquare
Laurent Burton, chairman of LeanSquare: “We are delighted, with this fund raising, to contribute to the growth of e-peas, a disruptive techno company that will allow the faster and deeper diffusion of energy autonomous microsystems in the daily equipment of all IOT users. The technologies implemented by e-peas are perfectly aligned with our strategy of developing an Industry 4.0 ecosystem that will accelerate the networking of advanced skills in this field.”
Quote Nivelinvest
Pierre Mottet, Director of Nivelinvest: “We are very excited with this new investment in e-peas which is in line with our strategy to play an active role to invest in the development of the digital and sustainable innovation ecosystem of the Brabant Walloon. We are also convinced that e-peas will play a major role in the development of industrial and IoT wireless products thanks to its disruptive technology and strong team.”
About e-peas
e-peas develops and markets disruptive ultra-low power semiconductor technology. This enables industrial and IoT wireless product designers to substantially extend battery lifespans and eliminate the heavy call-out costs of replacing batteries, without in any way compromising on reliability. Relying on 15 years of research and patented intellectual property, the company’s products increase the amount of harvested energy and drastically reduce the energy consumption of all power consuming blocks within wireless sensor nodes. Headquartered in Mont-Saint-Guibert, Belgium, with additional offices in Switzerland and the USA, e-peas offers a portfolio of energy harvesting power management interface ICs, microcontrollers and sensor solutions. www.e-peas.com
About Partech
With a portfolio of almost 180 companies spread across 30 countries in Europe, the US, Africa, and Asia, Partech has been one of the leading international investors helping visionary founders for almost 40 years. The Partech team – made up of both former entrepreneurs and executives from 15 different countries – brings capital, experience, strategic support, and networks to entrepreneurs at every stage of development: seed, venture, and growth. With over €1.5B under management, Partech invests from €200K to €50M in B2B and B2C technologies reshaping industries. Companies backed by Partech have completed more than 21 IPOs and more than 50 strategic M&A transactions valued over $100M. See Partech's current portfolio: https://partechpartners.com/companies/. http://www.partechpartners.com/
About Airbus Ventures
Airbus Ventures is a venture capital firm proudly inheriting the Adaptive Innovation, Systems Thinking, and International Mindset that distinguish our mothership Airbus, an aerospace upstart since its own beginnings. Building on this heritage we always aim to deeply support our portfolio companies, so that once invested, we can better understand, team and promote our portfolio Founders’ businesses to the Airbus worldwide network of partnering opportunities. We invest in
early- and increasingly, in growth- stage companies, acting as lead investors where appropriate, recognizing that new and fast-accelerating technologies reshaping aerospace now require newly inspired, ever-curious innovators and entrepreneurs untiring in their pursuit of excellence, from domains often well outside the traditional industry. We actively and successfully team our portfolio companies to help accelerate each other’s businesses, all the while strengthening our knowledge of the gaps in the system so that looking ahead, we can sharpen our hunt for system plays. http://www.airbusventures.vc/
About KBC Focus Fund
KBC Focus Fund is a €50 million venture capital fund that invests in advanced technologies with a particular emphasis on semiconductor, nanotechnology and IoT. We focus on Belgium and surrounding countries where well-known expertise centers are located.
KBC Focus Fund leverages on the network and expertise of KBC Group. It is managed by KBC Securities, which has a solid knowledge of the tech ecosystem in Belgium and beyond with experienced teams in M&A, Corporate Finance, and Research & Sales. As part of the KBC Group, the KBC Focus Fund aims to be long-term partners for entrepreneurs. www.kbcsecurities.com/investment-services/kbc-focus-fund
About W.IN.G
W.IN.G (Wallonia Innovation and Growth) by Digital Wallonia is an investment fund specialized in Deep-Tech and Digital start-ups. W.IN.G is managed by SRIW. http://www.wing-digitalwallonia.be/
About Noshaq
Noshaq is a portfolio of 464 companies and 600 million euros of resources. Noshaq is the reference financial partner for the creation and development of SMEs in the Liege Region. Over the years, Noshaq has developed a range of financing vehicles in line with the needs and trends of the market and its strategy. Each service offered by Noshaq (capital - loan - leasing) is always determined according to the demand and needs of the owner-investor. The objective is always to have a leverage effect on the company's development. http://www.noshaq.be/
About LeanSquare
LeanSquare is an investment fund whose objective is to invest in venture capital in start-ups in the new economy with real growth potential. LeanSquare offers an original project support method, with a "customer traction" focus. LeanSquare uses the business contact network of the Noshaq Group and its shareholders to serve start-ups. To prepare for financing, LeanSquare offers a series of tools adapted to start-ups, whatever their stage of development. http://www.leansquare.be/
About Nivelinvest
Nivelinvest is a regional evergreen investor with more than EUR 100 million under management. Its strategy is to invest in all stages of company developments with the aim to support entrepreneurs in their long-term ambitions. http://www.nivelinvest.be/
Contact e-peas
Email: sales@e-peas.com
Rue Fond Cattelain, 1 box 4,
1435 Mont-Saint-Guibert,
Belgium.