case study

How Smart Energy Innovation Fund from Energie 360° increased efficiency by 10x

The team at Smart Energy Innovation Fund, the venture capital arm of Energie 360°, was dissatisfied with the efficiency of their all-in-one solution. Despite its numerous flashy features, the all-in-one solution failed to perform tasks efficiently. Data upload was clunky, many automatically calculated metrics were consolidated incorrectly, and report creation took too long. Seeking improvement, the team switched to Vestberry, a portfolio management solution that streamlined data management and reporting, saving time for more value-adding tasks.

Industry focusCleantech, Energy, Smart Cities, Mobility

AUM₣ 38 million

Portfolio size14 investments

HeadquartersZürich, Switzerland

Smart Energy Innovation Fund @ Energie 360°

About Energie 360° &  Smart Energy Innovation Fund

Energie 360° is a Zurich-based energy and mobility service provider that makes sustainable energy available throughout Switzerland. It is 96% owned by the city  of Zurich. Energie 360° contributes day after day to the implementation of the  net-zero goal – here and now for future generations. The Smart Energy Innovation Fund is the corporate venture capital arm of Energie 360°. It focuses on start-ups in cleantech, energy, smart cities, and mobility, helping them quickly establish themselves in the market and achieve sustainable growth. The fund’s commitment extends beyond investments to actively supporting company founders. These founders benefit from the expertise, dedication, and extensive network of the investment committee.  The experts at the Smart Energy Innovation Fund assist start-ups with all  aspects of business and market development.

Smart Energy Innovation Fund identified 3 areas of improvement using Vestberry

Reduced

time spent on data management work by 70% thanks to bulk upload

Improved

fund performance overview with automatically calculated metrics like IRR, DPI, and TVPI

Sped up

report creation from 2 days to just 1 hour

The challenges of using an all-in-one VC tool

Before adopting Vestberry, Smart Energy Innovation Fund team, a venture capital arm of Energie 360°, switched from spreadsheets to an all-in-one VC tool, hoping to enhance deal flow and portfolio monitoring. They found spreadsheets to be inefficient and time-consuming for managing their fund’s data. The expectations for the new all-in-one tool were clear: help the team escape the maze of spreadsheets and streamline data management along with reporting.

The onboarding process for the all-in-one tool took longer than expected, with a six-month wait for the account to be ready. Once onboarded, the team quickly realized the tool was neither as efficient nor as user-friendly as they had hoped.

The all-in-one tool, promising to cover both deal flow and portfolio monitoring, had features that were either hard to use or entirely missing. Essential functions, such as transferring monthly or quarterly figures (budget and actual), were cumbersome and unintuitive. Some investment scenarios couldn’t be recorded accurately, requiring workarounds that led to errors in the fund performance metrics calculations.

Instead of improving their efficiency, the team at the Smart Energy Innovation Fund found itself manually inputting each figure into the all-in-one solution, which felt like reverting to Excel. Frustrated with inefficient data management and the inability to generate reports quickly, the team began searching for a new solution once again.

The search for a competent solution

After their previous experience with the all-in-one tool, the team at Smart Energy Innovation Fund decided to find  a dedicated solution for portfolio management and monitoring. The new solution had to:

Properly record different transaction scenarios and KPIs in
Automatically calculated fund performance metrics like IRR, DPI, and TVPI
Have an easy and efficient data management system
Streamline report creation process

From the outset, the Vestberry team left a strong impression, showing a thorough understanding of the client’s challenges and how the Vestberry product can address them. Impressed by how easy and efficient it is to create reports and import bulk data into Vestberry, the Smart Energy Innovation Fund fund team knew they found their new portfolio intelligence solution.

Evaluating Vestberry, we found the onboarding experience refreshingly transparent and customer-focused. The sales team deeply understood our needs and clearly explained what Vestberry could and couldn’t do. Their candid admission of the software’s limitations built trust and reassured us of their commitment to our long-term satisfaction, distinguishing them from our experiences with other tools.

Metin ZermanHead of Start-up Investments at Smart Energy Innovation Fund

The solution, powered by Vestberry

Customer-tailored onboarding

Choosing to go with Vestberry, the Smart Energy Innovation Fund needed their account to be ready for the Q1 reporting. Fully committed to meet the deadline, our CSM helped to transfer all data, resolved discrepancies and trained the client within 1 month. Compared to their previous experience, the Smart Energy Innovation Fund team was completely satisfied and ready to take on the Q1 reporting.

Highly granular & easy to manage database made for VCs

Thanks to Vestberry’s superior database granularity, the Smart Energy Innovation Fund team can record all their investment scenarios and KPI metrics in any required currency without compromise. The data is automatically transformed into fund performance metrics, providing the team with a real-time overview of their fund’s performance. Additionally, the team saves valuable time by using the bulk upload feature to efficiently load large quantities of data into the platform.

Streamlined Reporting via Excel Add-In

With our Excel Add-In feature, the Smart Energy Innovation Fund team no longer has to waste time consolidating data to create reports. With just a few clicks the team is able to export any portfolio data directly into our highly customisable report templates. Liberated from manual work, the team has more time focusing on tasks that create value.

The results & improvements

✔️ Fully onboarded within one month, aligning perfectly with Q1 reporting deadlines

✔️ All investment events accurately recorded in a single source of truth

✔️ Enhanced fund performance overview with automatically calculated metrics

✔️ Reduced manual data management work by 70% through bulk upload capabilities

✔️ Improved reporting speed from two full days to just one hour

The transition to Vestberry significantly improved how we manage our fund and portfolio company reports.  The platform’s intuitive navigation and streamlined processes enhance our efficiency of managing data  and generating documents.