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French crowdfunding site WiSeed creates WiCap Ennesys to invest 300,000 Euros
Los Angeles, California and Nanterre, France – 21 January, 2014 – OriginOil Inc. (OTC/BB: OOIL), developer of Electro Water Separation™ (EWS), and Ennesys SAS, the developer of environmental energy systems for sustainable buildings, today announced that Ennesys recently closed a funding round of 300,000 euros through Wicap Ennesys, a special vehicle created by French crowdfunding site Wiseed.
The pre-money valuation on this latest round of funding was about $6 million, multiplying OriginOil’s seed investment in the joint venture by thirty times.
The investment followed a state visit by French President François Hollande (video) in which the leader praised Ennesys as an innovative start-up with a technology ready to propel France toward meeting its ambitious renewable energy and green building goals.
“My greatest admiration goes to the Ennesys team, in particular the founders Pierre Tauzinat, Christine Grimault and Jean-Louis Kindler, who have built a major startup success in a very short period of time,” said Riggs Eckelberry, OriginOil CEO. “At 40% of total consumption, buildings are Europe’s greatest source of energy demand, and we will work hard to support Ennesys’ uniquely French solution to these challenges.”
Ennesys is currently exhibiting at the International Water Summit in Abu Dhabi.
In 2011, OriginOil helped launch Ennesys to target France’s sustainable energy law, RT 2020, which requires that buildings achieve a positive energy balance, while treating their own effluents, by the year 2020. Ennesys proposed to feed algae with sanitized waste water, using the algae to generate energy onsite. Ennesys immediately began working with large builders such as Global 500 multinational Bouygues.
In addition to its original investment, OriginOil has provided algae harvesting and water sanitizing equipment and technical expertise over the past two years. Late in 2013, OriginOil transferred three non-core patents to Ennesys on preferential payment terms to cement its technology position.
