Strategy

Intrapreneur Investing: Unlocking Value

Intrapreneur investing is a unique approach we employ to: (1) identify the most critical environmental and climate problems not being sufficiently addressed by the marketplace; (2) implement scalable cost-down solutions to resolve the problems; and (3) connect the right entrepreneurs and engineers to harvest robust value propositions and deliver profitable products to target customers concurrently along the cost-down path to commercial success.

The approach leverages BFV’s unique depth of wisdom, extensive warehouse of corporate partners and motivated applications people to maximize positive impact.

Filtering Edge: Intrapreneur Focus Impacts $B-$T Market Opportunities

Intrapreneurial “Corral” Portfolio

Prism.bio

Prism Bio is a natural colorant company founded on light sensing protein technology licensed from the University of California (Davis) and the labs of our co-founder, Dr. Clark Lagarias.  We have developed colors at pilot scale and are now sampling select customers in the food and personal care markets.  The Prism Bio applications team have invented a process to dye fabrics using our protein-based colorants that eliminates all heat from the textile dyeing process resulting in saving 0.5 Gton/year of GHG emissions.  The resulting fabrics have the same quality attributes as traditionally dyed textiles using the same capital equipment.

EvolOH

EvolOH will offer an electrolyzer solution to enable the production of clean, low-cost hydrogen at a revolutionary scale of hundreds of million tons per annum required going forward (see IRENA, World Energy Transitions Outlook 2022). This ultra-compact and lightweight product will offer the smallest footprint available anywhere and is made from commonly (nonprecious) available and plentiful low-cost materials. The team features members having extensive hydrogen and energy industry backgrounds.

Windfall Bio

Windfall Bio applies a capital-light and nature-based solution to capture methane emissions from the atmosphere. The company features demand-pull and supply-side competitive advantages via the valorization of the harmful methane emissions to “green” fertilizer. The team features multi-entrepreneurial backgrounds in nature-based and recombinant DNA solutions dating back to Maxygen, Inc.

Alta Technologies

ALTA has perfected a SynBio technology for the extraction of critical minerals from low-cost feedstocks. ALTA’s technology is characteristic of our leading edge position in SynBio (see: https://medium.com/@tbaruch/the-synthetic-biology-climate-change-opportunity-af8af04d9d5d) and materials science. The fit of the technology with a cost down and market skim scaling approach that is required to take SynBio through to commercialization defines a clear path to profitability. ALTA will form the leading edge of a “Made in America” supply chain to satisfy materials demand for the Energy Transition.

The Power Law Distribution

We invest in new business models that leverage converging exponential technologies which intersect with each other harmoniously to achieve high velocity VC (less than 10 years).

The ability to restore climate will take a “success movement” that starts out slowly and deliberately (think big, start small) and then converges exponentially to yield high growth and highly valued business enterprises which profitably deal with climate restoration, resource scarcity and sustainability.

We call this the “Power Law Distribution,” which, as illustrated in the graphic, shows the impact from the commercialization of four technology objectives—with growing market penetration over time leading to a truly circular economy free of carbon feedstocks:

  • Renewable Electrons
  • Climate/Digital Nexus
  • Circular Atoms
  • Ubiquitous Biomanufacturing

“Annual changes in prices of renewables have amounted to an astonishing plummet in prices and rise in efficiency and global use, compounded by innovations in materials and storage.”

-Rebecca Solnit, writer/activist