Sven Harmsen (pictured) has been hired as an investment director for performance materials at Merck Ventures, the corporate venturing unit of Germany-based drugs maker Merck Group.
Harmsen had previously been a principal at BASF Venture Capital (BVC), the corporate venturing arm of the eponymous Germany-based chemicals company.
Roel Bulthuis, managing director of Merck Ventures, which has just been given an increased mandate, said by email he was “very happy to have Sven on the team. He will indeed cover investments in the materials space.”
Harmsen joined BVC in January 2012 and opened BVC’s east coast US office in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was a board director for Advanced Bionutrition and a board observer for Slips Technologies and, until its flotation in June 2014, Aspen Aerogels.
Harmsen started within BASF’s crop protection division in January 2006 as head of global new business development, having previously been responsible for business development after heading the medicinal chemistry department of a venture-backed and now publicly listed biotech company called 4SC near Munich, Germany.
Following a post-doctorate at Stanford University, Harmsen started his career in R&D at companies like Hoechst Pharma/HMR (today: Sanofi), and AgrEvo/Aventis CropScience (today: Bayer).