The Lemon Fool

We have lots of startups in areas of green technology, some of them quite innovative and unexpected. Whichever of these succeed will help our future.

To get the ball rolling, here are my green (some more than others) crowdfunding flutters. Those which are UK companies (the majority) have always been EIS-qualifying when I've invested.

• Energy Generation(4): two tidal energy companies, and one generating energy from rivers without the need for weirs/dams. And one supplying information from satellites to help manage renewable infrastructure.
  
• Energy Efficiency(2): a company producing devices to capture heat from waste water from showers. And a company producing energy-efficient displays.
  
• Agriculture(2): two companies using technology to supply information to farmers and help optimise (usually reduce) use of irrigation and chemicals. One using sensors in situ, the other satellites.
  
• Transport(4): a bicycle maker, a developer of hyperloop train technology, and a company offering finance for commuters' season tickets (the last hit hard by covid but not dead yet). Also Pod Point (charge points for electric vehicles), now progressed from crowdfunded startup to listed company.
  
• Hygeine(1): a company producing a loo that captures and recycles human waste, and a big improvement on old tech like chemical loos. Primarily for situations where there's no sewage infrastructure.
  
• Plastics(1): a company recycling waste plastics into an alternative to bitumen for road building.

Hopefully others can contribute further ideas/experience with startups aiming to contribute in one way or another to greening the world?

UncleEbenezer wrote:We have lots of startups in areas of green technology, some of them quite innovative and unexpected. Whichever of these succeed will help our future
...
[*]Hygeine(1): a company producing a loo that captures and recycles human waste, and a big improvement on old tech like chemical loos. Primarily for situations where there's no sewage infrastructure.
...

I am not sure that 'recycling' human waste is the best phrase to use. Perhaps 'reusing' might be better.

tramrider wrote:I am not sure that 'recycling' human waste is the best phrase to use. Perhaps 'reusing' might be better.

Heh. I think they use a phrase like "harnessing the power of ...".

UncleEbenezer wrote:

tramrider wrote:I am not sure that 'recycling' human waste is the best phrase to use. Perhaps 'reusing' might be better.

Heh. I think they use a phrase like "harnessing the power of ...".

Or as we say in Yorkshire: "Where there's muck there's brass"!

a company producing a loo that captures and recycles human waste

Captures? I have this mental image of somebody with a big net, trying to round up a runaway turd. If I recall, Aardman's ground-breaking cartoon film on the same theme didn't go down very successfully. So to speak.

Joking aside, it's Dragon's Den ideas like these that stand to clean up (whoops, there I go again.) Always assuming that the technology is defensible. Or that the barriers to entry are high enough.

Okay, I give up. Make up your own bad jokes. Promising investment, though.

BJ

There's another crowdfunding opportunity open now: Reusable food/drink packaging with logistics to manage the lifecycle.

I have yet to evaluate it and decide whether to have a flutter, but it caught my eye so I thought I'd share.

UncleEbenezer wrote:[*]Agriculture(2): two companies using technology to supply information to farmers and help optimise (usually reduce) use of irrigation and chemicals. One using sensors in situ, the other satellites.

Update: one of these investees (the one using satellites) has now had an IPO and is listed on an obscure stock market. This is not a Happy Event for crowdfunding investors: the price is down, and there's no exit without charges disproportionate to small investors. I'm now sitting on a paper loss there.

I have hopes things will improve in time, but I'd like to see the crowdfunding platform (seedrs) keep its secondary market for this open so there's at least a chance to deal without layers of disproportionate charges.

Transport(4): a bicycle maker, a developer of hyperloop train technology, and a company offering finance for commuters' season tickets (the last hit hard by covid but not dead yet). Also Pod Point (charge points for electric vehicles), now progressed from crowdfunded startup to listed company.

The covid-hit finance company is looking nearer to dead. No surprise there.

I should also add, I exited the bicycle maker with a good profit on top of my EIS tax benefits.

There's another interesting-looking startup at seedrs, on a mission to replace millions of single-use plastic bottles with a superior version of water on tap. They're selling B2B and display quite an impressive list of blue-chip clients.

https://www.seedrs.com/zereaudrinks/ (probably requires you to be signed up and logged in to see the details).

Haven't made a firm decision, but I may very well have a flutter.

Should've posted this before ...

I've just had another small and very speculative flutter in https://www.seaweedgeneration.com/ . The fundraising round closes in a couple of days.

UncleEbenezer wrote:

• Agriculture(2): two companies using technology to supply information to farmers and help optimise (usually reduce) use of irrigation and chemicals. One using sensors in situ, the other satellites.

Just as a comment, there's a lot of those kinds of agtech companies about, and the big boys are also involved - notably Microsoft FarmBeats which went opensource a few months ago - it seems to be more about the Gates Foundation helping developing countries - and Mineral which Google/Alphabet unstealthed last week, although one of the areas they're concentrating on is helping breeders know which new plants are likely to be best, with the help of what is effectively a miniature Streetview setup going up and down the fields.

Generally these companies seem to be moving away from satellites and towards drones, as drones are much cheaper than satellites and more "self-contained" - a lack of good internet connectivity is a major problem when trying to roll this stuff to farms in the real world although in rich countries the likes of Starlink are now an option. There also seems to be a general criticism that they are good at generating data, but less good at actually delivering results for farmers, so that's perhaps something to bear in mind.

agfundernews.com is a useful site for keeping track of some of this stuff.

Hallucigenia wrote:

UncleEbenezer wrote:

• Agriculture(2): two companies using technology to supply information to farmers and help optimise (usually reduce) use of irrigation and chemicals. One using sensors in situ, the other satellites.

Just as a comment, there's a lot of those kinds of agtech companies about, and the big boys are also involved - notably Microsoft FarmBeats which went opensource a few months ago - it seems to be more about the Gates Foundation helping developing countries - and Mineral which Google/Alphabet unstealthed last week, although one of the areas they're concentrating on is helping breeders know which new plants are likely to be best, with the help of what is effectively a miniature Streetview setup going up and down the fields.

Generally these companies seem to be moving away from satellites and towards drones, as drones are much cheaper than satellites and more "self-contained" - a lack of good internet connectivity is a major problem when trying to roll this stuff to farms in the real world although in rich countries the likes of Starlink are now an option. There also seems to be a general criticism that they are good at generating data, but less good at actually delivering results for farmers, so that's perhaps something to bear in mind.

agfundernews.com is a useful site for keeping track of some of this stuff.

Not a bad summary.
It's a really interesting space with lots of small players doing interesting work and larger entities offering them platforms and solutions that don't really suit them.

UncleEbenezer wrote:

• Hygeine(1): a company producing a loo that captures and recycles human waste, and a big improvement on old tech like chemical loos. Primarily for situations where there's no sewage infrastructure.

Bad jokes aside, they're raising again through crowdfunding. Anyone wanting to (not) flush some EIS-qualifying money down the khazi , DYOR on how best to describe it.

Thanks for lifting the lid on that one.

UncleEbenezer wrote:

• Energy Efficiency(2): a company producing devices to capture heat from waste water from showers. And a company producing energy-efficient displays.

We have a profitable exit. The company capturing waste heat from showers has a buyer. Small investors are being dragged along. The return on my investment will be from 3.3 to 3.7 times my original investment, depending on a holdback.

No EIS 'cos they're a Portuguese company. Which also means the investment is Euro-denominated.

UncleEbenezer wrote:We have a profitable exit. The company capturing waste heat from showers has a buyer. Small investors are being dragged along. The return on my investment will be from 3.3 to 3.7 times my original investment, depending on a holdback.

No EIS 'cos they're a Portuguese company. Which also means the investment is Euro-denominated.

Should've added - This should be Good News for us in the UK. Hitherto they've been distributed here branded Heatrae Sadia, who sell at at a fantasy price - about £1300 when I looked for a product that was available in Ireland and elsewhere for €300 (this was when there was just one original version of the product - there's now a range). Being owned by a bigger company with international reach should hopefully close that gap!

UncleEbenezer wrote:

UncleEbenezer wrote:

• Energy Efficiency(2): a company producing devices to capture heat from waste water from showers. And a company producing energy-efficient displays.

We have a profitable exit. The company capturing waste heat from showers has a buyer. Small investors are being dragged along. The return on my investment will be from 3.3 to 3.7 times my original investment, depending on a holdback.

No EIS 'cos they're a Portuguese company. Which also means the investment is Euro-denominated.

How does Portuguese 25% dividend withholding tax work out now that we're out of the EU. Is there any treaty agreement whereby that can be offset against UK dividend taxation?

1nvest wrote:

UncleEbenezer wrote:We have a profitable exit. The company capturing waste heat from showers has a buyer. Small investors are being dragged along. The return on my investment will be from 3.3 to 3.7 times my original investment, depending on a holdback.

No EIS 'cos they're a Portuguese company. Which also means the investment is Euro-denominated.

How does Portuguese 25% dividend withholding tax work out now that we're out of the EU. Is there any treaty agreement whereby that can be offset against UK dividend taxation?

I've no idea. Not applicable to me, anyway: all my dividends are tax-sheltered. This was a startup, and there was no tax to pay on my capital gain.

I looked up the buyer. They're based in Brussels. So that would be a Belgian investment now. I don't hold them, but if I did I'd buy in the SIPP, where they're protected by reciprocal tax exemptions on pension assets.

I guess that's the same situation as if I re-bought my first and most successful ever FTSE investment, twenty-bagger ARM, now that it's been driven out of Blighty and is re-listing on NASDAQ.

UncleEbenezer wrote:

1nvest wrote:How does Portuguese 25% dividend withholding tax work out now that we're out of the EU. Is there any treaty agreement whereby that can be offset against UK dividend taxation?

I've no idea. Not applicable to me, anyway: all my dividends are tax-sheltered.

Does "tax-sheltered" here mean in a pension fund, such as a SIPP? Because holding in an ISA makes absolutely no difference to a foreign governments witholding tax.

XFool wrote:

UncleEbenezer wrote:I've no idea. Not applicable to me, anyway: all my dividends are tax-sheltered.

Does "tax-sheltered" here mean in a pension fund, such as a SIPP? Because holding in an ISA makes absolutely no difference to a foreign governments witholding[sic] tax.

We've gone off-topic here: startups rarely pay dividends at all, no matter what country they're in. I guess I rose to the bait of someone taking a swipe.

My comment was general: my dividends are tax-sheltered through several different mechanisms, two of which are indeed SIPP and ISA. In the case of directly-held[1] non-UK shares, yes it's the SIPP.

[1] As opposed to held through a collective vehicle such as Scottish Mortgage.

Back on topic, if I may be so bold.

Another crowdfunding option I'm now pondering is Green Lithium. Heavy industry in Blighty, producing battery-grade lithium, by a process they claim is much greener than industry norms.