A focus on partnerships for startups at the GC&E Conference
The 23rd Annual ACS Green Chemistry and Engineering Conference is now several weeks behind us. This year’s meeting was held in Reston, Virginia and was notable as it was combined with the 9th International Conference on Green and Sustainable Chemistry.
The GC&E Conference is always fantastic for two big reasons: First, attendees come from all parts of the green chemistry community and include academics, industry chemists, business leaders and entrepreneurs and government agencies. The meeting is small enough to facilitate great networking opportunities, and it is inspiring to participate in sessions where people with diverse perspectives come together in one room and contribute ideas on specific challenges in the field.
The second reason the GC&E Conference is great is that it features a wide range of technical sessions. There are sessions on green chemistry education, advances in catalysis, applying green chemistry in the pharmaceutical industry, and life-cycle analysis, just to name a few. This year’s conference featured over 40 technical sessions! There is enough to appeal to almost anyone whether they have been involved in green chemistry for years or are just starting to learn about the field. And yes, it is impossible to see everything, BUT, you can plan to take in your top choices and it is possible to hop between sessions easily in the smaller venue.
My friend Laura Reyes and I had the privilege of organizing the session “Leveraging Partnerships in Startups and SMEs” at this year’s conference. This session highlighted the approaches startups can take to develop partnerships and leverage resources that can address technical, funding, and commercialization challenges to their businesses.
In many ways, startups are well positioned to commercialize emerging technologies in green and sustainable chemistry: a lean approach can accelerate development of a product or process and the determination of the right market/business model. However, compared to startups that create apps, entrepreneurs that are creating new chemical technologies have greater challenges to fund technical development, build infrastructure, complete scale-up manufacturing and navigate regulatory issues. Doing chemistry is just hard.
Of course, this is where partnerships can really advance a chemical technology business. For example, a strategic industry partner can assist in validating the technology for a given industry sector and offer insights into the startup’s chosen market. A larger company as a partner is a natural candidate to license the startup’s technology or to acquire it outright. Additionally, there are several not-for-profits and government agencies that offer expertise, connections to business leaders, and, of course, grant funding. There’s plenty of upside for building partnerships, but there are still challenges and potential pitfalls to navigate and this is what we wanted to explore in this session.
In addition to a line up of great speakers from different chemistry focused businesses, the session also included a panel discussion featuring panelists from different organizations that are resources for entrepreneurs building their companies. Laura captured the details in dutiful live-tweeting (if you don’t follow her on twitter, you should!), but here is my blog summary:
Our first three speakers were Adrienne McKee from Checkerspot, Sumedh Surwade of SAS Nanotechnologies, and Bryan Tracy from White Dog Labs. Each presenter had a unique perspective on partnerships and ways to approach the various relationships that have been critical to their companies.
Adrienne McKee is the Director of External Partnerships at Checkerspot, a company that was featured in C&EN 2018’s “Ten Startups to Watch”. The company is using cutting edge biotechnology to produce novel fatty acids that can be made into performance polymers and resins. Checkerspot is pursuing multiple joint development agreements to get their materials into products including surfboards, garment coatings, and most recently, skis! Adrienne’s presentation focused on the human aspect of partnerships: although from a business perspective these relationships are transactional, trust and an alignment of values are what really sustain a partnership. When setbacks and challenges inevitably come up, they are much easier to address within a partnership where both parties trust each other.
Sumedh Surwade is the founder and CEO of SAS Nanotechnologies, a company that is working to commercialize self-healing anticorrosive coatings. Sumedh and his company recently won the Akzo Nobel Paint the Future startup challenge. Although SAS Nanotechnologies coating technology had a lot of potential, the path to commercialization was not obvious. Sumedh emphasized the importance of networking with other companies to learn more about their technologies and potential opportunities for working together. It was through these efforts that he learned of BASF’s work in similar technologies and this inspired the idea for a joint development project. This highlights a maxim of networking- only by talking to enough people can you connect to the right people.
The third entrepreneur to present was Bryan Tracy. Bryan founded and leads White Dog Labs, a biotechnology company that is making protein products for different animal feed markets as well as oils for use as fuels. Bryan shared with us the story of ProTyton, a protein-based feed for aquaculture, and the work that has been needed to bring it to market. This effort has involved multiple partners, including not-for-profit agencies and current players in aquaculture. The human aspect of building relationships was again critical- White Dog Labs is located in Delaware, a major centre of the chemical industry in North-America, and this proximity has been beneficial for connecting with, and learning from, many companies that are active in markets important to White Dog Labs.
Richard Goodman, and independent consultant with experience working with venture investors, was our fourth speaker. He discussed the importance of startups doing their own diligence prior to seeking investment. Finally, Charles Collins-Chase and Andrew Renison, both of Finnegan LLP gave a presentation that described the how startups can enter into a partnership smartly and minimize risk. This is mainly accomplished by having very good agreements in place around disclosure, the ownership/assignment of IP that is created, and a narrow definition of project goals/activities.
The final hour of the session featured a panel discussion with panelists from organizations that are resources for startups. We had Julie Manley from the Green Chemistry and Commerce Council (GC3). Julie runs the GC3 Start-up Network and helps connect entrepreneurs with larger companies with the aim of advancing startup technologies and finding potential joint-development partners. Claudio Cinquemani joined us from the International Sustainable Chemistry Collaborative Centre which works with startups in Europe and Internationally. Janine Elliott represented Venturewell, a not-for-profit organization that provides funding, training and support to entrepreneurs. This includes programs to accelerate the businesses of young entrepreneurs starting out at Universities. The panel also included Ben Schrag from the National Science Foundation’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) granting program. The SBIR program offers grants of non-dilutive funds to companies that may be too risky or early-stage to receive venture investment. The work of these organizations and the resources they make available to entrepreneurs is worth a post (or several) on its own!
Panelists from left: Ben Schrag, Claudio Cinquemani, Janine Elliott, Julie Manley. Photo credit: Tony Bova
What were some of the takeaways from the session? One of the common themes of the presentations and discussions was that while business partnerships are transactional, human factors make these relationships work. Some keys are building and leveraging a network that can help in finding the right partners, sharing your company vision and values to determine how you could work together with a partner, and finally entering into relationships with the intention to make a contribution that will achieve a shared goal and build trust with your partner. For entrepreneurs working in the field of green and sustainable chemistry there is a very supportive community of stakeholder and business leaders that are willing to share expertise and help make connections that could be invaluable, so leveraging this community should be a top priority!
Thanks to everyone who came out to our session and special thanks to all the speakers and panelists. The 2020 edition of the Green Chemistry and Engineering Conference takes place next June in Seattle!
Mission accomplished! Dr. Reyes and I in obligatory post session photo.