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Imprimatur Capital Technology Venture fund invests in
clean technology start-up NeoZeo
Riga, 7th of January, 2014. Imprimatur Capital Technology Venture Fund in Latvia has signed
an investment for €600,000 in start-up company NeoZeo. This is the Venture Fund’s fourth
investment since launch in mid 2010. NeoZeo develops small-scale raw biogas upgrading
systems for farms and municipalities to convert raw biogas to pure biomethane for direct use as
a vehicle fuel.
Renewable energy is becoming one of the fastest growing energy sources. The global raw
biogas upgrading market is expected to reach $340 million by 2016 and with a compounded
annual growth rate of 22%. However a major technical challenge for raw biogas upgrading is
how to cost-efficiently utilize unexploited agricultural waste at the small and medium scale and
turn it into pure biomethane.
NeoZeo, a spin-out from Stockholm University, has found a novel solution for solving that
problem. The company has developed and patented a unique zeolite structured porous material
and process for the effective separation of carbon dioxide and methane. The key commercial
application is the small and medium scale upgrading or purification of raw biogas into costefficient green gas fuel for cars and buses. The new capital investment will finance the design,
development and marketing of a commercial-scale biogas upgrading unit and enable initial
sales in key target markets during 2014 and 2015.
Toby Moore, Managing Partner of Imprimatur Capital Fund Management in Latvia stated, “We
have been impressed by the high technical competence of the NeoZeo team, the positive
support of Stockholm University Innovation in the commercialisation of the technology and the
strongly growing market in which NeoZeo operates and aims to become a leading player
worldwide.”
Petr Vasiliev, Co-founder & CEO of NeoZeo stated that “The investment and Imprimatur
Capital Fund Management team are essential to achieve NeoZeo’s targets to make the big step
from prototype to pilot to reach the biogas upgrading market and take a technological lead with
our small-scale raw biogas upgrading solution for farms.”
Imprimatur Capital Technology Venture Fund has been funded by the Latvian Guarantee
Agency managed and EU Structural fund co-financed holding fund, in addition to a number of
private sector institutional investors and other private investors.
About LGA
Latvian Guarantee Agency is a full service development finance institution that helps
entrepreneurs to raise funding when adequate collateral is not available, helps to expand their
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business by providing mezzanine loans, provides insurance for export business, as well as
provides venture capital funding in Latvia.
About Imprimatur Capital Fund Management
Imprimatur Capital is an international seed investor in high-growth technology businesses with
global market potential. To date Imprimatur Capital Fund Management, headquartered in Riga,
Latvia, has invested from its Seed Fund in 15 start-ups sourced from the Baltic, Nordic, Russia
region, in sectors including nano-technology, green technology, electronics and big data.
Contacts:
Toby Moore, Managing Partner, Imprimatur Capital Fund Management, tel. +371 67 365 275;
tm@impcap.com; www.icfm.lv
Petr Vasiliev, Founder & CEO, SIA NeoZeo, tel. +371 26 452 302
petr.vasiliev@neo-zeo.com; www.neo-zeo.com
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