Hungarian investment firm Geoterm Invest to enter geothermal space
A new investment firm Geoterm Invest, owned by venture capital fund Morando, is entering the geothermal space in Hungary buying a majority stake in a geothermal district heating project in Mako, Hungary.
Reported from Hungary, a new investment fund has been set up by Hungarian venture capital fund Morando “Geoterm Invest (GI) exclusively owned by venture capital fund Morando, whose owners are well-known investment leaders and portfolio directors like László Mészáros, Tamás Gazda and Gyula Gansperger, former CEO of Hungarian national asset manager MNV. Morando serves as one of the funds managing the SME investment sources of the EU, known as Jeremie (Joint European Resources for Micro to Medium Enterprises), to which it also contributes its own equity.
The venture capital fund Geoterm Invest (GI) is exclusively owned by Morando.
“The owners of Morando are said to have picked geothermal energy as an investment sector in order to make use of the knowledge base of failed oil exploration projects in Hungary. “The documentation of unexploitable oil and gas deposits had been lying idle in the archive of the Mine Captain’s Office, until Geoterm Invest made use of it in exploring thermal water resources,” an oil-drilling expert familiar with the geothermal business told the BBJ. The brilliant idea lying behind this is that documented failures can spare GI a lot of trial wells: their success is almost guaranteed when drilling for hot water.
According to Morando’s business plans for this year, HUF 1 billion will be invested in geothermal energy projects related to GI. The geothermal firm has already acquired a majority stake in Materm, a project company that is planning to develop a geothermal district heating system and a spa for the city of Makó (southwest Hungary). Next it is planning to start a similar project in Csongrád, another town in the southern region of the country.
In the strict sense of the word, GI is not a startup company as its investors did not support an existing enterprise but created one for their own purposes. However, it serves as a good example for an idea related to renewable energy by a venture capital fund.”
Source: Budapest Business Journal