EP #120 - Liliane Ableitner: The Sustainable Neighborhoods Of Tomorrow

Timestamps: 2:00 - Why start your own company? 7:29 - Winning Investor's Choice at Energy Startup Day 12:15 - How to stand out from competition 28:24 - Closing a funding round 33:23 - Choosing between Germany, Switzerland and Austria About Liliane Ableitner and Exnaton: Liliane Ableitner is the co-founder and CEO of Exnaton, a software provider for energy communities, allowing neighbors to trade renewable energy amongst each other. Before starting Exnaton, Liliane was a Doctoral Researcher at the Bits of Energy Lab at ETH Zurich. She met her two co-founders, Arne Meeuw and Anselma Würner, during her work on the research project "Quartierstrom", funded by the Swiss Federal Office of Energy. The project resonated well with all stakeholders involved and the three PhD students decided to spin it out into an independent company in 2019. Since then, Exnaton has signed 2 pilot customers and is currently fundraising. In December 2020, they won the Investor’s Choice award at Energy Startup Days, which helped the company to gain exposure amongst relevant stakeholders. Contrary to some of their competitors, Exnaton doesn’t sell their software to end consumers. Rather, they cooperate with local utility companies and allow them to white label their solution and distribute it to their customers. Exnaton is greatly benefiting from the liberalization of European energy markets because it has been driving competition for innovative products between utility companies. They are hoping to further benefit from an opening of the Swiss market, which has traditionally been very protected. Memorable Quotes "If you're in a market with 0 competition, then you're in the wrong market, because either you're on a completely wrong track or you're way too early." If you would like to listen to more conversations on green tech, check out our episodes with Mark Essam, Anaïs Matthey-Junod, Alessandra Rojas and Sébastien Jaffaux. Don’t forget to give us a follow on our Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts, so you can always stay up to date with our latest initiatives. That way, there’s no excuse for missing out on live shows, weekly give-aways or founders dinners!

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The Swisspreneur Show is a podcast series of in-depth, candid conversations with some of Switzerland’s most successful founders, business leaders and innovators. By getting to the heart of these leaders’ stories - their successes, their failures, their must-have advice and greatest regrets - we hope to both inspire and guide the next generation of Swiss entrepreneurs. Each episode deconstructs and showcases one person’s personal and professional background and provides advice and recommendations for existing and aspiring entrepreneurs in Switzerland.