« Q-Cells Invests In Swiss Solar Startup | Main | alarm:clock euro Venture Quiz Winner »
July 03, 2006
Norway's TH!NK With New Investor
Electric car startups in Silicon Valley have garnered some VC interest now that the price of oil has made alt energy a viable investment category again. It is also true in Europe, although it's not the brand name VCs jumping in just yet.
For example in Norway the TH!NK car company just got itself some new money and investors.
TH!NK was founded back in 1973 and had some success in the late nineties, but wobbled through the early part of this decade as it was bought and sold by several different investors, including the Ford Motor Co. over the years.
In March the firm announced that InSpire Ventures has taken a majority stake in the firm and funded a management buyout.
The company whose vehicles are targeted at mainstream drivers (as opposed to the Tesla which is a high end electric car) and now expects to launch a new model in Norway in 2007 and selected international markets in 2008. Its first model hit the road in 1999.
The investor is new to us but seems to have a good track record. InSpire was founded by Jan-Olaf Willums, an environmental technologist with VC, political, and business experience. InSpire backed a couple of successful ventures, including artificial intelligence IT company Computas, Avenir acquired by Ementor, and Solenergy, a Photovoltaic company which became part of REC, whose IPO last year was the largest ever seen on the Oslo stock exchange, according to the firm.
Read - Think is taken over by Norwegian Investor Group (press release Th!nk)
Read - Silicon Valley's Tesla vs Smart (a:c)
Posted on July 3, 2006 12:39 PM | Posted to Alternative Energy | Venture Capital | Permalink
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.thealarmclock.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1515
