Jos Peeters

Founder and Managing Director
Capricorn Venture Partners

Jos Peeters is Founder and Managing Partner of Capricorn Venture Partners, a Leuven based pan-European manager of venture capital funds. Jos is regarded as one of the pioneers of the European venture capital industry, being active in this area since 1985.
Jos is a founder and director of EASDAQ, which is relaunching as Equiduct, a regulated market for secondary trading in Europe.
Jos has a PhD in Physics from the University of Leuven. He is a past chairman of the European Private Equity & Venture Capital Association (EVCA), a member of the Global Advisory Board of the London Business School and Chairman of Science@Leuven, the alumni association of the sciences students of the University of Leuven.

Capricorn Venture Partners

Capricorn Venture Partners is an independent pan-European venture capital and asset manager seeking to invest in technology based growth companies. Capricorn’s dedicated investment teams are composed of experienced investment managers with deep technology expertise and a broad industrial experience. Capricorn is investing out of its Capricorn Cleantech Fund, its Capricorn Health-tech Fund, its Capricorn ICT Arkiv and is managing Quest for Growth, a cross-over fund quoted on EuroNext Brussels, and the Quest Management Cleantech Sicav.

Peter Adriaens, PhD

CEO
KeyStone Compact Group

Professor
Ross School of Business, University of Michigan

Dr. Adriaens is Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Professor of Entrepreneurship and Strategy in the Ross School of Business, where he is affiliated with the Zell Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies. He is past-President of the Association of Environmental Science and Engineering Professors, a member-by-eminence of the American Academy of Environmental Engineering (AAEE), and Member of the Belgian Royal Academy of Applied Sciences, where he was recognized for bridging engineering and business entrepreneurship in academia and practice. Most recently, he was awarded a Finnish Distinguished Professorship, focused on portfolio financing models for CleanTech.

Following a 20-year career in in technology development (environmental sensing, green buildings) and validation, his current work focuses on CleanTech innovation and entrepreneurship. Specific interests include business water risk models focused on financial risk assessment, reverse innovation strategies for new mobility strategies, and the development of indexes and investment portfolios in emerging cleantech clusters. He teaches courses on Business Models, Entrepreneurial Business Fundamentals, CleanTech Venture Assessment, and Sustainability Finance. He is co-developer of the KeyStone Compact™, a data-driven analytical and strategic positioning tool for that has been used by more than 1,000 global early and later stage companies in a wide range of investment domains (CleanTech, BioTech, ITC, space sciences), used by economic development organizations in the US, Europe and Asia.

He is co-founder and CEO of Water Risk Analytics, a big data and software analytics financial technology firm addressing equity and portfolio risk and performance issues related to ESG investments. He is CEO at The KeyStone Compact Group (www.keystonecompact.com), built around the KeyStone suite of tools addressing investment strategies across the business lifecycle. As co-Founder/Head Judge of the Global CleanTech Custer Association (GCCA), his interest is in building out value chains for industrial renewal by screening, repositioning and connecting Cleantech clusters and companies (www.globalcleantech.org). With 56 clusters in the Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, representing nearly 10,000 companies, and $3.5 bn. under management, the GCCA catalyzes global value system development.

For more information, see www.linkedin.com/in/peteradriaens.

Hans Maenhout

Investment Director
Finindus

Hans Maenhout is Investment Director at Finindus, a joint investment company of ArcelorMittal and the Flemish Region. Finindus provides early stage financing and growth capital to innovative companies active in the area of materials, material processing and sustainable manufacturing. Hans holds a Master degree in Chemical Engineering from the UGhent, complemented with an executive education in International Management from Vlerick Management School (Ghent), Corporate Finance from EHSAL (Brussels) and M&A and Corporate Development from INSEAD (Fontainbleau).

He started his career with Texaco in R&D. Following a number of different assignments at Texaco, including 3.5 years in the USA, and a transition management assignment in one of the portfolio investment companies of the KBC group he joined a JV of the ArcelorMittal group and the Flemish Region in 2007 to head up a greenfield start-up company active in structural lightweight sandwich panels. After the sale of the company, he was mainly involved as a consultant in M&A projects within the petroleum and energy industry. Hans joined Finindus in October 2013 as Investment Director.

Dirk De Boever

Chairman of the Board of Directors
Borit

Head of Investments
Finindus

Dirk De Boever holds a M.Sc. in Applied Economics, a degree in international B2B marketing and an Executive MBA (Vlerick Business School). Dirk started his professional career in 1994 at Sidstahl, the new sales organization for flat carbon steel within the Arbed Group (now ArcelorMittal). During this period he was strongly involved in strategic marketing, investment and feasibility studies, business planning and support of group management in M&A transactions. He also served as quality auditor.

In 2002, Dirk joined tKMC, a marketing and business intelligence boutique as managing partner, serving large companies in telecom, energy, fmcg and industry. Dirk accepted an assignment in 2006 to support OCAS, a metal research center and JV between the Flemish region and ArcelorMittal, with its first spin-off company. Two years later he was asked to join OCAS Ventures as managing partner to build and manage a portfolio of innovative material related companies for Finindus, the investment company linked to OCAS. Since July 2013 Dirk is appointed Head of Investments of Finindus. Dirk serves at the Board of Directors of Borit, Calyos and Powercell.

Claude Stoufs

Partner
Capricorn Venture Partners

Claude holds a Master of Science degree in Chemistry. He is a graduate in Business Administration and a graduate in International Trade from the University of Brussels.

He joined Akzo/Fabelta in 1974 and held increasingly senior management positions in the R&D department, the pilot research unit, and a major chemical production plant.
Claude was recruited by PA Technology end-1980 and became Senior Consultant in charge of the technology strategy consulting practice, a position he held until May 1985.
After 5 years with PA, he worked at Occidental Petroleum where he held the dual responsibility of business development for the European chemical division and the set-up of an M&A unit active in the European market.

Claude joined FMC Corp. to lead the M&A activities in Europe from mid-1990 onwards. He also became responsible for the development of the European employee benefits programme from end-1997 and the worldwide FMC expatriate benefits programme from mid-1999.
Claude came to Capricorn Venture Partners as Senior Investment Manager in October 2000 and is now Partner from early-2013. His contribution to the funds advised by Capricorn is mainly in the areas of biotechnology, healthcare, advanced materials and cleantech.

Claude, on behalf of the funds advised by Capricorn, assumed the role of lead investor in a series of major rounds of financing in cleantech, biotechnology and healthcare start-ups, including the financing of 4AZA Bioscience, TiGenix, UroGene, Fluxome, Alaska Food Diagnostics, FRX Polymers and Green Biologics. He also played a significant role in the successful closing of follow-on rounds of financing of Capricorn's investee companies such as BioAlliance Pharma, EcoPhos, TiGenix, 4AZA, UroGene, FRX, Green Biologics and Avantium.
Claude serves or has served at the Board of Directors of BioAlliance, Elbion / 4AZA, TiGenix, UroGene, FlandersBio vzw, Fluxome, Alaska Food Diagnostics, AK Diagnostics Europe, Avantium, FRX Polymers Inc., FRX Polymers NV, Green Biologics, Capricorn Venture Fund II and Capricorn Cleantech Fund.

Mark A. Lebel

President and CEO
FRX Polymers

Marc Lebel is President and CEO of FRX Polymers, which was founded in 2007. FRX Polymers develops and produces novel non-halogen, inherently fire resistant polymer additives and plastics. Prior to forming FRX, Marc held senior roles for several companies including CEO DSM Thermoplastic Elastomers, Global Business Director – Cabot Corp, Executive VP – Triton Systems and VP Sales and Marketing – Aspen Aerogels.

Marc is the current Chairman of the North American Phosphorus, Inorganic and Nitrogen Flame Retardant Association (PINFA). FRX Polymers has won a numerous awards, including The Flanders Investment of the Year Award, twice The Frost and Sullivan Innovation of the Year Award, The Global Cleantech 100 Award to name a few. Marc holds the designation of professional engineer from the provinces of Ontario and Alberta in Canada and studied Chemical Engineering at the University of Ottawa. In addition, he has completed company sponsored executive business courses at the Harvard Business School and the International Institute for Management Development.

Bart Cauberghe

Partner – Smart Industries
GIMV

Bart Cauberghe (°1978) joined Gimv in 2009, after having spent 5 years advising multinationals as a management consultant at the Boston Consulting Group. At BCG, he worked for the Brussels, London and Singapore office gaining international business experience in leading several strategic projects ranging from cost reduction programs, assessing investment programs, market studies to re-organizations.

At Gimv he has been involved in multiple transactions and active as board member or observer in several portfolio companies such as Punch Powertrain, Xeikon, Dcinex and XL Video.

Bart holds a master’s degree in mechanical engineering, a PhD in applied sciences and a postgraduate degree in business administration.

Cor van Otterloo

CEO
Punch Power Train

Cor van Otterloo graduated as an automotive engineer from the University of Delft in 1983. He experienced a long career at Philips, managing and leading various business units. Having had the global responsibility of all traditional television tube business, he gained huge experiences of doing business in Asia. He finished his career as senior vice-president at Philips in 2006 in order to return to his original passion, being the Automotive Industry.

Becoming CEO at Punch Powertrain he managed the company to realize a steep growth by transforming it from a single based customer factory of ZF to an extremely diversified powertrain company focusing on the strong emerging Asian markets. During his career at Punch Powertrain he experienced several transactions with private equity players.

Sofie Baeten

Managing Partner and Co-Founder
Capital-E

Sofie Baeten is managing partner at Capital-E. Her investment focus is on innovative applications and technology in Green (investment area focusing a.o. on energy efficiency, energy storage, advanced materials and smart grid). She joined Gimv in 2008. Before she gained two years of venture capital experience as investment manager at Baekeland Fonds II, a venture capital fund of the University of Ghent and as CEO of Viacatt, a small start–up specialized in Ru-catalyst development. Prior to that, she worked for 7 years at Bekaert NV, where she held several positions in R&D project management, business development and innovation management.

Sofie holds a MSc degree in Materials science engineering from the University of Ghent (Belgium), a PhD from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium) and a Master in Entrepreneurship from the Vlerick Management School (Belgium).

Koen Hasaers

CEO
NovoPolymers

Koen Hasaers, CEO of NovoPolymers founded the company in 2008.

He started his career in 1992 as a shift supervisor in the material science company Raychem, evolving into sales planning and global purchasing at USA plants for the European markets.

Prior to becoming an entrepreneur he worked for 13 years in the Pharmaceutical industry at Johnson & Johnson in both manufacturing and research & development. His duties covered global management and outsourcing of clinical trial packaging, supply chain optimization and process excellence initiatives at the European manufacturing sites.

Under his CEO leadership NovoPolymers’ strategy was redirected from a European oriented manufacturing company to a technology company with global reach. Core research and development activities are deployed in Europe to serve the key markets like China. He organized the global supply chain involving local partners for manufacturing of the end products in Spain, Turkey and China. Koen has lead all funding rounds of the company.

John Verzeele

Director Inward Investment
Flanders Investment & Trade

John Verzeele : 53 years old, joined Flanders Investment & Trade in 2004 after being Chief Executive of a conference service-provider and Director of the Chamber of Commerce in Bruges. He has held a number of positions in both public and private organizations. He has been awarded the title of Honorary Judge at the Court of Social Affairs having been active for more than 10 years as a judge settling disputes between employers and employees. As Director Inward Investment, he is in charge of attracting and assisting foreign investors to Flanders (Belgium). Vast experience with all types of investment projects. Travels the world to convince investors to choose Flanders for their European projects and as such he has given numerous presentations to a wide variety of audiences.

Richard Youngman

Managing Director, Europe & Asia
Cleantech Group

Richard Youngman is responsible for driving the growth of the Cleantech Group’s activities outside North America, especially in Europe and Israel, and Asia. He is based in Cleantech Group’s office in London.Richard has more than seven years of experience researching cleantech innovation, venture capital markets, and start-ups across Europe and Globally. He is a regular keynote speaker at major cleantech events and is the driving force behind the annual Global Cleantech 100, a list of the World’s most promising private cleantech companies, and the Global Cleantech Innovation Index. He authors periodic reports, such as The Rise of the Corporation in Cleantech and the European Cleantech Fundraising Environment 2013. He is also responsible for the annual European Cleantech Forum, which has been running since 2005, and for the annual Cleantech China Tour, now in its 4th year.

Most recently, he was Vice President of Research & Operations at Library House, where he ran the Library House Research team, which discovered and collected the information about high-growth companies that underpinned that company’s data, analytical, and event services. Before Library House, Richard ran his own advisory firm conducting research and consulting on the measurement and evaluation of intangible assets and intellectual capital for organizations such as the European Commission. This followed nine years building a broad-based finance and research background with leading financial institutions such as ABN AMRO, Barclays Capital and BZW in the City of London. His work was centered on the debt markets and revolved around financing M&A deals and advising clients on achieving alignment between their financial and strategic plans. Richard has an MA from Cambridge University, and an MBA from Theseus International Management Institute, Sophia Antipolis, France.

Dr. Nuno Carvalho

Head of Bekaert Venturing
NV Bekaert SA

Dr. Carvalho is head of Bekaert Venturing, the corporate venture capital arm of Bekaert, a world market and technology leader in steel wire transformation and coatings. Bekaert Venturing invests in early-stage companies having innovative technologies that can create strategic growth options to the different business platforms of the company.

Previously, he had several managerial assignments across the company which helps to identify and connect external start-up companies with Bekaert business and innovation interests. He holds an Executive MBA and obtained a Ph.D. degree in Materials Sciences.”

Hendrik Van Asbroeck

Director Corporate Venture Capital
GDF Suez

As Director Corporate Venture Capital, Hendrik Van Asbroeck is responsible at GDF Suez’s group level to manage the corporate fund for participations in innovative companies and funds. He started working at Electrabel, GDF Suez as Account Manager and soon moved to Key Account Manager, focussing on the automotive and chemical industry. In 2007 he took over the responsibility of the Renewables department. In this position he created multiple joint ventures to stimulate Electrabel’s green energy development.

In 2011 he was promoted to Head of Sales Electrabel, where he had to turn around the organisation to make it more efficient. When he left the job in 2014 the efficiency had improved by 30% and the sales results were again positive.

Before joining Electrabel Hendrik was Account Manager and Financial Analyst at Air Products Belgium.

Hendrik van Asbroeck holds a Master degree in Commercial Engineering from the K.U. Leuven University. He holds additional diplomas from the Vlerick Management School, the European Energy Institute and Insead-Cedep.

Ernst & Young, a view on cleantech and sustainability
Tristan Dhondt

Partner in EY’s Transaction Advisory Services
Ernst & Young

Tristan is Partner in EY’s Transaction Advisory Services (TAS) department and has over 20 years experience, amongst other services, in Corporate Finance, Project Finance and Infrastructure in a broad sense. He is part of the renewable energy & cleantech sector and has advised on numerous international strategy consulting M&A, fundraising and project finance transactions also spanning all major renewable energy technologies (onshore, offshore wind,  biomass, solar, geothermic, etc.). Tristan leads EY's TAS presence in the energy sector.

Carine Van Hove

Managing Director
Flanders Cleantech Association

Following a career at the Brussels Stock Exchange and at British Petroleum for 14 years in functions varying from ICT to financial and business analyst in consumer & industry projects and pan-European business & financial harmonisation projects, she got attracted to concentrate on scouting, screening and developing business start-up potential within the non-core activities of global organisations: so called industrial spin-offs. By doing so, she became passionate about SMEs, and the way they can enforce an eco-system around large enterprises. At VITO, she works with a team of business developers and researchers to promote and demonstrate sustainable technologies to SMEs, and to guide them when implementing these technologies in their industrial processes, buildings or new concepts. Themes are sustainable industry/chemistry, energy, materials and upcycling, sustainable land use and preventive health. This experience provided the necessary basis for an additional position: Flanders Cleantech Association (FCA), an industry focused initiative of VITO. FCA gathers industry, SMEs and stakeholders around clean technologies in order to gain global exposure to influential networks, new markets, potential investors, innovative technologies and best practices.

Applitek

AppliTek’s analytical technology allows to automatically and continuously monitor the quality and chemistry of water sources. This approach is radically different from current time-consuming and static laboratory measurements that are widely used, at the expense of smart water management. Our analytical solutions can be applied to renewable energy (anaerobic digestion, solar power plants) and industries with an interest in reducing their footprint such as the chemical industry.

www.applitek.com

Hydrogenics

Hydrogenics develops zero-emission hydrogen technology that permits conversion of excess solar and wind power into green hydrogen gas. This renewable hydrogen can subsequently be used in the transportation, heat, and/or industrial energy sectors. Hydrogen can also be converted with CO2 into synthetic methane, methanol, or ammonia. In six out of seven global lighthouse Power-to-Gas demonstration projects of 1MW or bigger Hydrogenics technology is being used.

www.hydrogenics.com

Hadda International Group

Hadda International Group (HIG) is an International ECO Construction & Energy company operating in “Housing, Energy and Water Engineering” HIG aims to be a leader in innovative and technological solutions pertaining to coveted GREEN developments for society as a whole. With this, we are turning the tables for you in shifting towards the necessary GREEN ECONOMY in terms of HOUSING, ENERGY and WATER.

www.haddagroup.com

The Sniffers

The Sniffers, a Belgian company founded in 1991, is a world-wide leading expert in emission & energy reduction projects and underground pipeline inspection and management services with references with almost all big O&G companies. We detect and quantify all kinds of leaks and energy loss on piping sources and leaking equipment from industrial activities, using the latest technologies. The result: a safer and healthier industry with less product and energy loss, resulting in direct cost savings and high return on investments.

www.the-sniffers.be

Voxdale

Voxdale (Antwerp) is an engineering and research agency that designs, simulates, optimizes and builds products, systems and processes. As a technology integrator, the company often banks on ESA technology to develop Cleantech solutions. With spin-off SpacePal NV, Voxdale is introducing high tech solutions for the sewage sector.

www.voxdale.be

Typhoon

Typhoon is a Belgian cleantech company active in industrial dedusting and pneumatic conveying solutions, as well as producer of industrial fans. The own developed products (dustfilters, rotary valves, fans, etc) excel the most in industrial environments where robustness is an absolute condition. Typhoon is looking for partners to leverage on its proven expertise in several industries in order to pursue its international ambitions.

www.typhoon.be

NuReSys

Phosphorus (P), just like fossil fuel, is a finite source – STOP – P is an indispensable component of mineral fertilizers needed to feed 7 billion people – STOP – To avoid eutrophication, waste water treatment plants has to avoid P leaking to surface waters – STOP – Therefore P is strongly bound to Fe and precipitates into the sludge where is lost – STOP – NuReSys-P technology, closing the loop, RECOVERS P from waste water and makes it available as a clean fertilizer – START –

www.nuresys.com

LayerWise

LayerWise is a leading European production center exclusively focusing on Metal 3D Printing. Using the Additive Manufacturing (AM) technology mastered by LayerWise, the company produces metal components – without material scrap and without the use of oil as applied in traditional metalworking. The digital AM approach challenges traditional metalworking and molding practices by producing complex, freeform parts in a single manufacturing step. This results in compact serial-produced parts offering increased capabilities while reducing weight and maintenance costs.

www.layerwise.com