By Michel Rose
PARIS, May 27 (Reuters) - French utility EDF is opening up to the world of start-ups with a 90 million euro fund that has already screened 1,000 projects and invested in half a dozen, including one which says its batteries could rival those sold by Tesla.
Coming on top of a separate 650 million euro annual budget in research and development, the 30 percent stake in the Electranova Capital fund is helping the state-owned French group keep abreast of breakthroughs worldwide, EDF executives said.
"We don't have a monopoly on innovation, so the idea is to open up our research and development," said Bernard Salha, the former electricity monopoly's R&D chief told reporters at a presentation to take stock of the fund's first three years.
"What we want is to be completely aware of everything that's happening in the start-up world, worldwide," he said.
The fund, managed by French private equity group Idinvest Partners, aims to take minority investments of around 1 million to 10 million euros in companies in the "cleantech" sector. It has invested in 8 start-ups so far, including Norwegian wind turbine firm Seatower and U.S.-based power demand data company FirstFuel.
"We want to be selective in our investments, which explains why the fund's value today is significantly higher than our original investment," Thomas Piquemal, EDF's chief financial officer said, declining to say by how much.
One of the companies the Electranova fund has invested in is Forsee Power, which was founded in June 2011 and acquired Dow Chemical's battery division in 2013.
Specialising in battery management systems - electronic systems that help manage rechargeable batteries - Forsee Power designs electricity storage equipments and plans an initial public offering (IPO) early next year.
Its founder, Christophe Gurtner, told reporters its lithium-ion batteries were as good as Tesla's, which unveiled a battery storage container for homes known as Powerwall this month.
"It's a very well marketed product, many people want to buy it just because it's Tesla. So we spend a lot of time since their announcement explaining that yes, we have the same product, and no, we don't use it the same way," Gurtner said, expecting household usage to remain a niche market. (Reporting by Michel Rose, editing by David Evans)