Statkraft Ventures

Alexander Küppers is a Managing Director at Statkraft Ventures who focuses on early-stage companies working on the global energy transition. Before venture capital he built his career in the energy sector, starting as a power trader, growing Statkraft's renewable power-purchase agreement business to market leadership, and developing a large renewable Virtual Power Plant. He holds a Diploma in Economics from the University of Mainz, Warsaw School of Economics, and the Norwegian School of Economics in Bergen.

Lars Odin Mellemseter is an Investment Director at Statkraft Ventures, based in its Oslo office. He previously served as Managing Partner at Constructive Capital, a sustainability-focused investment firm, was a portfolio manager investing in industrial and renewables companies at Ascend Capital in California, and worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Company in San Francisco. Earlier, he co-founded and led GNR, a London-based internet infrastructure company backed by the Carlyle Group and Northzone and later acquired by Verisign. He holds a PhD from Oxford University, studied graduate economics at Cambridge University, and earned a bachelor's degree from Harvard University.

Stefan Hülsen is a Managing Director at Statkraft Ventures who focuses on non-obvious startups. He previously founded and served as CEO of GameCosmos, which was acquired by Gamigo, where he stayed to help grow the business until its sale to Axel Springer. He later invested in technology companies through NRW.BANK's venture capital fund.

Steffen Funck works at Statkraft Ventures, focusing on start-ups in the energy sector. Before joining the firm, he was an entrepreneur and served as COO/CMO of Venios GmbH, a smart-grid and distributed-energy-analytics company, and earlier worked in RWE's corporate strategy department. He holds an MSc in Physics from Imperial College London and has experience in market positioning, strategy, and B2B sales for energy start-ups.

Torgunn Oldeide works at Statkraft Ventures, focusing on startups in the energy transition. She has about 15 years of M&A energy transaction experience, executing deals internationally, and previously helped establish Småkraft, a small-scale hydro power business later acquired by Aquila Capital. She holds an MSc in Business and Economics from the Norwegian School of Management.

Cengiz Polat is Vice President of Financial Reporting for BA Europe at Statkraft. With more than 20 years of accounting experience, he has worked with both IFRS and German GAAP (HGB) standards, as well as energy contract recognition and measurement, purchase price allocation, financial due diligence, and fair value measurement of unquoted equity instruments.

Odette Yga is an Associate at Statkraft Ventures who focuses on identifying startups supporting the green energy transition. She holds a Master's degree in Economics from the University of Cologne and previously joined the firm as a working student. Earlier in her career she conducted market research at Pisacane in Cologne, worked at the business incubation startup Invomex in Mexico, and served as an analyst rating funds and asset managers at Fitch Ratings.