French crowdfunding platform WiSeed, a site that claims over 21,000 members and having raised over €6.3 million in the past years, has now facilitated OriginOil (OTCBB:OOIL) to fund Ennesys in a closed funding round. WiSeed created a bespoke offering vehicle to allow the company to raise €300,000 for Ennesys on a pre-money valuation of $6 million. OriginOil’s saw their initial investment multiplied by 30 times. Ennesys is the developer of a environmental energy systems for sustainable buildings.
The investment followed a state visit by French President François Hollande in which the leader praised Ennesys as an innovative start-up with a technology ready to propel France toward meeting its ambitious renewable energy and green building goals.
“My greatest admiration goes to the Ennesys team, in particular the founders Pierre Tauzinat, Christine Grimault and Jean-Louis Kindler, who have built a major start-up success in a very short period of time,” said Riggs Eckelberry, OriginOil CEO. “At 40% of total consumption, buildings are Europe’s greatest source of energy demand, and we will work hard to support Ennesys’ uniquely French solution to these challenges.”
Ennesys is currently exhibiting at the International Water Summit in Abu Dhabi.
In 2011, OriginOil helped launch Ennesys to target France’s sustainable energy law, RT 2020, which requires that buildings achieve a positive energy balance, while treating their own effluents, by the year 2020. Ennesys proposed to feed algae with sanitized waste water, using the algae to generate energy onsite. Ennesys immediately began working with large builders such as Global 500 multinational Bouygues.
In addition to its original investment, OriginOil has provided algae harvesting and water sanitizing equipment and technical expertise over the past two years. Late in 2013, OriginOil transferred three non-core patents to Ennesys on preferential payment terms to cement its technology position.
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