Turbulent raises 3.2 million euro in Series A funding round to fuel its ambitious international business plans.

Starting with a theoretical paper and some garage-based experiments, Geert Slachmuylders (a creative engineer) teamed up with Jasper Verreydt (a finance and legal analyst) in 2015 to try and build his idea into a viable business. The idea: “Using the natural principle of a vortex to efficiently create affordable, local and renewable energy with very low height differences in rivers, without harming the local ecosystem.”

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After finding seed funding from the Iminds incubator and the European Innoenergy, Turbulent was able to develop and test its first prototype in Belgium. Sadly, Belgium turned out to be a very small market in hydropower and under impulse from Engie, Flanders Investment and Trade, and the Chilean government, Turbulent moved its business focus to Chile.

 

This resulted in a commercial pilot turbine in 2017, delivering 15kW (the equivalent of roughly 30 average Belgian families) to a local Chilean farmer using the existing irrigation canal. The result went viral. 100 million views later in social media, Turbulent has received in 2018 more than 10000 requests for its projects from distributors, customers and investors. With the know-how gathered at its first installation, Turbulent is ready to accelerate, finalize the micro hydropower plant for production in 2019 and scale up in business development. To achieve this, Turbulent finalized a €3.2 million funding round with new investors Inventures (www.inventures.fund) and Victrix.

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About

Inventures II is an impact VC fund, which supports young European companies in their growth projects. As a pioneer in impact venture capital in Europe, Inventures only invests in companies whose activities address one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals ("SDGs") defined by the UN.

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Victrix is a family-owned holding with investments in shipping, sustainable agriculture and industries.

 

With this investment, Inventures and Victrix want to be an active player in the renewable energy sector and help Turbulent realize its mission to become: “the most profitable micro hydro power plant, inspired by nature, delivering clean and decentralized energy to everyone at a low cost, without harming local environment”.

 

The deal has also been realized thanks to the support and initiative taken by Family Capital Solutions at KBC Securities, the investment banking division of KBC.

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