A session on low-carbon investing was moderated by Tom Whitehouse, contributing editor at Global Corporate Venturing who is also a founder of advisory firmLondon Environmental Investment Forum. Whitehouse quoted poet William Blake, who had written Energy is eternal delight, and the session included speakers from both energy startups and corporate venturers.
After a presentation of data from GCV Analytics on the top 10 investors in emerging energy enterprises and the increase of energy storage and management and renewable energy deals compared with traditional oil and gas, Jonathan Tudor, managing director of energy producer BP’s corporate venturing unit, BP Ventures, highlighted the transition to a low-carbon economy and how emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence will make the shift smoother.
Paul Carragher, founder of BiSN Oil Tools, a downhole sealing technology provider backed by BP Ventures as well as Schlumberger, General Electric and ConocoPhillips, gave a presentation on the company’s business. Founded in 2010, BiSN specialises in sealing solutions made of bismuth, a non-toxic corrosion-resistant dense metal, with viscosity similar to water and that also expands like ice.
Shaun Gray, executive chairman of another BP Ventures portfolio company, seaborne fuel monitoring technology developer GreenSteam, also spoke. Founded in 2008 on the Faroe Islands, GreenSteam subsequently moved its head office to Denmark and is now based in the UK. The company’s technology monitors vessel operating conditions and collects live data from sensors, streaming it to a console on the bridge and onshore, allowing fleet managers to optimise the the movement of vessels, and Gray emphasised how much its business is data-driven.
The audience then heard from Amanda King, chief financial officer of Origami Energy, a provider of grid-scale energy management services. Origami’s smart technology dynamically matches energy demand against the available supply across an electricity network, saving money and increasing reliability.
Edward Pratt, director of business development for acelylated wood producer Accsys Group, which partnered BP Ventures to get its business off the ground, Talked about his company. Accsys’s acelylated wood is a material that, unlike regular wood, is a high-performance high-margin high-growth product with a wider range of applications in the construction of commercial and residential buildings and a “$50bn to $70bn market proposition”, Pratt claimed.
