Lightrock

👂 Where can you hear from the Lightrock team in March? 🇮🇳 Partner Kushal Agrawal will be a panellist at the ALFI - Association of the Luxembourg Fund Industry and the LPEA - Luxembourg Private Equity & Venture Capital Association’s Luxembourg Fund Industry Seminar in Mumbai, India, on 4th March. 🇩🇪 Martin Karschkes will also be a panellist at the Süddeutscher Verlag Veranstaltungen GmbH’s SZ Sustainability Forum in Munich, Germany, on 27th March. 📨 If you'd like to learn more about Lightrock, do reach out to our team via LinkedIn DM. 👇 For additional event details, please click on the links in the comments.

🎤 So far this year, Lightrock has been on stage at: ✅ LEAP 2025 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, ✅ AI Everything in Dubai, UAE, where Ashish (Ash) Puri also met His Excellency Omar Sultan Al Olama, the Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence ✅ SDA Bocconi in Milan, Italy, where Estella Langheim participated in the Sustainability Forum event ✅ the World Economic Forum’s Davos conference in Davos, Switzerland, where Dr. Katharina Sommerrock and Dr. Marc Moser discussed sustainable investments 👀 Thank you to all of the organisers who made these events possible. We're thrilled by this strong start to 2025, and have more speaking slots to be announced shortly...

🌬️ “Wind and solar needs to prevail, and I’m doing my best job to unblock this bottleneck of the wind turbine industry.” – Dainis Kruze   🌀 The wind energy industry is expected to expand to 30 times its current size, meaning that Aerones – a robot-enabled wind turbine blade care and inspection services provider – is playing a vital part in building a sustainable future. To date, the company has serviced 30,000 turbine blades in 27 countries and can complete this up to 6 times faster than traditional repair methods that require rope-access technicians. Aerones’ work not only enhances turbine performance but also reduces downtime and extends the lifespan of existing infrastructure.   📽️ Fellow Aerones backers European Investment Fund (EIF) beautifully captured the activities and achievements of Aerones in a video case study, with Co-founder & CEO Dainis sharing his motivations behind building the company.   👇 For more information, check out the video below: https://lnkd.in/eXdsdE_Z

📺 Did you catch our Head of Impact LatAm Tatiana Freire Sasson on TIMES BRASIL - LICENCIADO EXCLUSIVO CNBC?    🗣️ In two interviews—one with Natália Ariede and another with Marcelo Torres—Tatiana highlighted key distinctions between impact investing and ESG, how Lightrock’s portfolio companies like ComBio Energia S.A. and Konfío produce environmental and social benefits alongside financial returns, the importance of impact measurement in preventing greenwashing, and why Brazil is a strategic market for impact investing.    👇 Watch the full interviews (in Portuguese) via the links below! 🌐🌐🌐 📺 Você viu nossa Head de Impacto LatAm Tatiana Freire Sasson no TIMES BRASIL - LICENCIADO EXCLUSIVO CNBC? 🗣️ Em duas entrevistas—uma com Natália Ariede e outra com Marcelo Torres—Tatiana destacou as principais diferenças entre investimento de impacto e ESG, como as empresas do portfólio da Lightrock, como a ComBio Energia S.A. e a Konfío, têm impactos ambientais e sociais além de trazerem retornos financeiros, a importância da mensuração de impacto para evitar o greenwashing e por que o Brasil é um mercado estratégico para esse setor.   👇 Assista às entrevistas completas (em português) nos links abaixo!

📣 Distribusion Technologies has announced new partnerships with Moovit and Železničná spoločnosť Slovensko, a. s. (ZSSK)!   🚌 Lightrock-backed Distribusion operates a leading B2B ground transport marketplace that works to enhance the accessibility of more sustainable forms of ground transportation. The company's single API works to connect carriers like Amtrak and National Express LLC with platforms trusted by travellers like Google Maps and Booking.com.   🗺️ With these partnerships, Distribusion is simplifying travel across Europe through Moovit’s app, which is used by over 1.5 billion users! Linking up with ZSSK, the state-owned railway operator in Slovakia, also brings the benefits of Distribusion's platform to travellers on the country's rail network.   🔗 Congratulations to the entire team on these impressive wins! For more information on both of these partnerships, check out the links in the comments.

🏆 Congratulations to Katana Cloud Inventory for winning SaaS Startup of the Year at the Estonian Startup Awards!   ☁️ Lightrock partnered with this Tallinn-based company in 2022 to help accelerate its growth. Its cloud inventory platform offers SMEs built-in inventory, production, and reporting features, providing an end-to-end inventory management solution fit for modern businesses.   🏅 A record number of nominations were received this year, with 222 founders serving as jury members to produce the shortlist for 11 categories. These included Founder of the Year, GreenTech of the Year, and DeepTech of the Year. The event was opened by the Estonian Prime Minister, who stated that the government will continue to support the country’s tech sector.   🔗 For more details, click on the link in the comments.

Exciting news: Moniepoint Group, one of Nigeria's leading payments and banking services platforms, has secured a significant investment from Visa to accelerate its growth across Africa and empower African SMEs to digitize and scale. Founded in 2015 (formerly TeamApt), Moniepoint has established itself as Nigeria's leading financial platform for SMEs, delivering comprehensive integrated services – from digital payments and business bank accounts to credit, FX, and business management tools. At Lightrock, we're proud to have first partnered with Moniepoint in 2021, supporting Tosin Eniolorunda and Felix Ike as they bridge critical financial inclusion gaps while creating opportunities for other businesses to grow and prosper. The platform's growth has been remarkable, now processing over 1 billion transactions monthly, with payment volumes exceeding $22 billion! This strategic partnership with Visa marks an exciting next step in Moniepoint's continued expansion. Congratulations to the entire team on this significant milestone! Read the TechCrunch article and the Moniepoint blog post about the news in the comments.

🗣️ Here’s where you can hear the latest insights from Lightrock in the first few months of 2025: 🇨🇭 Head of Investor Relations Dr. Katharina Sommerrock will be speaking at futur/io Institute’s Davos Sustainable Investments Forum about the trillion-dollar gap to Net Zero tomorrow in Davos, Switzerland. 🇨🇭 Head of Impact Dr. Marc Moser will also be in Davos, Switzerland, as part of Top Tier Impact’s Energy Transition Panel, exploring how to accelerate the global shift to clean and sustainable energy systems. He will be joined by panellists from Baloise CH, Emerald Technology Ventures, Clima Now, and Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship. 🇦🇪 Partner Ashish (Ash) Puri will be speaking at AI Everything about how investors balance the potentials and pitfalls in AI investments on 5th February in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. 🇸🇦 Ash will also be at the LEAP 2025 Tech Conference. He will be on-stage to discuss how to future-proof innovation on 9th February, and will participate in the Rocket Fuel Pitch Semi-Finals on 10th February in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. 🇩🇪 Martin Karschkes will be speaking at the SZ Sustainability Forum alongside panellists from Ananda Impact Ventures, GENUI, and Innpact. 📨 If you'd like to learn more about Lightrock, do reach out to our team via LinkedIn DM. 🔗 For more information on Ash’s and Martin’s slots, see the links in the comments.

I’m pleased to share that Lightrock has participated in the Series B funding round of SolarSquare Energy, a leading provider of residential solar solutions in India. Founded in 2015 by Neeraj Jain, Shreya Mishra, and Nikhil Nahar, SolarSquare has built an impressive business by streamlining residential solar installation. Their full-stack approach cuts out intermediaries while ensuring great quality and service, making home solar both more affordable and hassle-free for customers. The company’s execution speaks for itself: They’ve completed over 20,000 installations with excellent customer satisfaction ratings, and their efficient operational model and team of 700+ professionals have proven highly scalable, demonstrating strong unit economics and a clear pathway to further growth. This funding will support SolarSquare’s expansion to 50+ cities across India, while also strengthening their technology platform, team capabilities, and market presence. Congratulations to both the Lightrock and the SolarSquare teams. We look forward to being part of this journey. See a link to SolarSquare’s website and TechCrunch’s coverage in the comments.

📰 The final Lightrock Latest newsletter of 2024 is out now! 👇 Read about our follow-on investment in Satispay, the Slush Climate Summit, and our role in the Impact Convergence Forum for Private Equity (ICF), and more down below.