Enthusiasm for advanced materials venture investing is gathering steam, as corporate attendees from chemicals companies BASF, Evonik and Sabic, and industrial businesses like Airbus gathered to discuss trends in the sector with entrepreneurs and investors.
Last week Global Corporate Venturing helped bring together more than 80 people for the first event of our GCV Advanced Materials Society at the offices of sponsor law firm Norton Rose in London. This society, which we are running in partnership with the London Environmental Investment Forum (LEIF), will shortly publish a report and there will also be forthcoming video interviews from the sidelines of the event.
The event itself was held under the Chatham House Rule, where what is said by participants cannot be attributed.
Tom Whitehouse, GCV contributing editor and LEIF chairman, said he felt enthusiasm for advanced materials investment was on the rise due to new participants keen to enter the sector.. He said: “You are seeing companies come forward which have a greater appetite for risk. Alternative providers of debt getting interested in the sector is a new development and an encouraging development.”
Whitehouse said this would bring some balance to the funding ecosystem, as it is often hard for early stage businesses to secure funding from traditional and corporate venture capital sources.
One of our sponsors was government agency Innovate UK. Whitehouse said given the difficulty raising capital for many businesses in the sector, “it was great to hear from a governmental venturer, explaining their strategy.” Innovate UK also helped our society select a strong range of companies in the sector, which impressed many of the corporate venturing executives in attendance. Other sponsors of the event were venture firm Enso Ventures, executive search firm Peloton Advisors and miner Clean TeQ Holdings.
Delegates heard investor and industry participant views on the potential they saw in sectors like batteries and advanced manufacturing (including 3D printing) and there seemed huge enthusiasm for the transformation advances in these areas mean for industry and society.
Undoubtedly there are some promising companies being developed in and around advanced materials. One investor quipped: “The tricky thing about the pitches, was I wanted to invest in all of the companies.” It will be with great interest that we take this society forward, with our next event planned for Spring next year.