An investment manager with nearly five years of experience working for BASF Venture Capital, Michael-Jean Nettersheim perceives his role as one of building bridges between the corporate and startup worlds.
Seeing corporate venture capital as both an exercise in investing and about cooperation, Nettersheim has overseen a number of BASF’s recent deals. Most notably, Nettersheim was involved with BASF’s exit of water desalinisation firm NanoH20.
A spinout of University of California Los Angeles, NanoH20 raised $95.5m in external funding including a BASF-backed round worth $60.5m in 2012 – $40m in equity, $20.5m in credit facilities – before selling to South Korea-based chemical firm LG Chem in 2014 for $200m.
Nettersheim feels that corporate venturers need to do more to foster the exchange between multiple industries as opposed to focusing solely on one and that “mixing the genetic pool” can lead to stronger concepts. With a background as both a seed fund investor and time spent at a publicly listed biopharmaceutical company, Nettersheim is looking to be the facilitator of communication and understanding between BASF and portfolio firms and to get corporate stakeholders behind the venture unit’s mission and goals.
In the future, Nettersheim said he aimed to focus on transferring fresh entrepreneurial thought and spirit to BASF and transfer what the venture unit learns into the corporate as a whole. When he is not at work, Nettersheim is an avid reader and shares his travels around the world with his family.