“In corporate venturing, success is not just about investment, it is about creating value and collaboration,” says Siti Nurul Narizah Mohd Nizar, head of deployment and accelerator at Petronas Ventures, part of Malaysian state-owned oil and gas company Petronas.
Narizah has worked at Petronas for two decades, initially joining the firm as an engineer in 2003. She was involved in projects, upstream strategy and commercial portfolio earlier in her career.
In 2018, Narizah was among the team that helped launch the corporate venture capital unit for Petronas. She formally joined Petronas Ventures in 2019, focusing on the technology accelerator programme.
“We scout visionary entrepreneurs and startups globally. We look for breakthrough technologies and innovative business models that we can bring to Petronas,” says Narizah.
Petronas Ventures manages $800m in capital and has two funds: the Asia-Pacific region-focused Twin Tower Ventures and Piva Capital, which targets North American and European startups.
“In corporate venturing, success is not just about investment, it is about creating value and collaboration.”
The unit has 30 active portfolio companies globally and has backed seven funds.
“Our value proposition to the founders goes beyond capital. We bring additional value to the cap table, such as introducing US startups to the Asia-Pacific region,” says Narizah.
Narizah says Malaysia’s corporate venturing ecosystem is nascent. “I aim to create a collaborative mindset, bringing together diverse corporations to foster corporate venturing and innovation regionally through VC investment,” she says, highlighting that CVC is a high-risk but high-reward business.
This year, Narizah will continue to focus on long-duration storage, green mobility and technologies to create sustainable oil fields. “I believe the demand for these areas will grow in Asia, especially in China and in India,” she says.
See the full list of GCV Emerging Leaders for 2024 here.