As managing director, Crispin Leick set up Innogy Venture Capital inside Germany-based energy company RWE about three years ago, subsequently spinning it out.
The firm secured another investor, alongside RWE’s Innogy unit, in Conetwork Erneuerbare Energien, an investment company of the Bankhaus Lampe Group specialising in renewable energy, in November last year.
Leick said the markets in which RWE was operating were changing rapidly, which made the corporate venturing activity highly important. He said: “Utilities are thinking: ‘How do I ensure I still exist?’ This is not because they want to be nice. This is sheer survival. Three years ago, when we started, people were saying energy is different from telecoms. Today all these managers would say it is changing fast. In Germany, renewables are changing the face of all markets.”
Leick has now spent seven years working for RWE, including his time at Innogy Venture Capital.
He joined RWE from Repower, a company he became part of when it was a 200 to 250-person company. He planned its flotation. He said: “I was lucky to be part of that. I helped drive the company to be the European leader.”
He added his work there included helping seal the first wind turbine delivery contract in the UK.
Leick has also worked for US-based energy giant Enron. He said: “I worked three years for Enron, who were looking at the time for people with an engineering background. I met very interesting people there, and ex-Enron managers are now everywhere in the energy business.
There I witnessed how a 40,000-people entity can come down in eight weeks. Enron had supported my MBA [master of business administration] so I stayed until the last day closing down the books. A key lesson for me was always to listen to the customers, never think that you are smarter than they are, and to manage liquidity very conservatively.”
He added: “I studied at the technical university of Karlsruhe, an elite university in Germany. Why did I go there? Because chemical engineering was invented there. The same was true of my MBA. I did not go to Germany or Switzerland. I went to Chicago. I wanted to learn from the guys who invented it.”
Lessons from the top: Leick said: “It is extremely important to start a corporate venturing unit out of the corporate. You have to know what the corporate is looking for and you must provide a solution for what the corporate is looking for. Even though our two investors are different, they have the same topic – they are both renewable asset operators. They are looking into the future and what will the future bring? It is extremely important you provide a fit-for-purpose solution for your investors, but you must be credible and knowledgeable in what you are doing.”
