Delaware Valley chemical startups meet with potential investors

The Delaware Sustainable Chemistry Alliance (DESCA) this week held an Investor Forum to connect sustainable technology startup founders and entrepreneurs with investors and corporate strategic partners.

This is only the second investor event in the organization’s eight year history. DESCA first held an investor forum in 2013. In the two years that followed, those companies collectively raised more than $25 million in venture capital, secured development relationships or licensing deals with companies such as Shell, Koch Industries, Air Liquide and GE or underwent profitable acquisitions.

This year’s event, which was sponsored by Potter Anderson Corroon LLP and McCarter & English featured a new group of pre-vetted companies that largely operate in the Delaware Valley and are in various stages of commercialization, ranging from proof of concept, to customer and partner validation, to market expansion. These companies included:

• Advanced BioNutrition – a company that offer sustainable, science-based solutions for nutrition & health, agriculture & biopharma;
• Meristematic – a cannabis starter plant nursery based on proprietary, high-throughput tissue culture;
• Napigen – uses genome editing technology for agricultural, industrial biotech and human/animal healthcare applications;
• SAS Nanotechnologies – develops smart microcapsule technology with multiple applications and a focus on self-healing corrosion inhibition;
• Talos Tech – offers advanced materials for battery makers; new energy storage solutions for customers;
• ThruPore Technologies – has developed synthetic, high porous carbon with an especially high-value application in the chemical catalysis sector;
• W7Energy – next generation hydrogen exchange membranes that enable zero-emission fuel cell vehicles
• White Dog Labs – a biotechnology company that develops advanced nutrition ingredients for animal health and bio-security.

Members of DESCA assisted the pitching companies with their company profiles and pitch presentations, and will be following up with each of them over the coming months to ensure that they receive any additional assistance they may need as they communicate with potential partners and further develop their commercialization plans.