it’s a veritable smorgasbord of green investment today. First up to the proverbial plate of VC goodness is EnOcean, a German firm that specialises in wireless systems for the builiding industry which are powered using ‘energy harvesting’. Sounds a bit like what happens to humans in The Matrix, but is in fact far more benign.

It basically means EnOcean’s sensors – used to monitor things like movements in buildings or temperature – don’t use batteries. Instead, they suck up energy from their environment, be it solar or thermal, and power the sensors that way.

It’s already caught the eye of the VCs and EnOcean has landed €4.5m in funding, bringing total investment so far to €20m.

Wellington Partners and 3i Group have made the largest investment, with Emerald Technology Ventures, Siemens Venture Capita, Siemens Technology Accelerator, BayTech Venture Capital Beratungs and ATMOS all joining in the investment too.

Here’s the statement from the CFO of the company, Uwe Thumm, on where the money will go:

“This new financing will be focused on expanding the European and North American markets, and establishing new markets, especially in Asia. In addition, we’re investing in further development of our technology and products.”

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