Corporate Venturing and
Innovation (CVI)
Why CVI?
Since its beginnings, Sumitomo Chemical has sought out business development opportunities that not only strengthen its core businesses but also help to realise a sustainable society. As a Sumitomo Chemical Group Company, CDT follows the same principles, guided by the Sumitomo Spirit and Business Philosophy. Our Sumitomo Chemical Group Corporate Venturing and Innovation (CVI) offices play a crucial role by finding and cultivating innovative and disruptive technologies for the future businesses of Sumitomo Chemical.
CDT provides the European CVI office for Sumitomo Chemical and we have two sister CVI offices in the U.S. — in Cambridge, MA and Silicon Valley, CA. In all of these we develop and maintain partnerships for collaborative research.
What type of opportunities are we interested in?
As a Sumitomo Chemical Group Company, our main four focus research areas are Food, Healthcare, Reducing Environmental Impact, and Materials for Information Communication Technology (ICT).
Typically, we are seeking opportunities for Sumitomo to be a strategic, rather than purely financial investor. Such opportunities will have not only a good fit to Sumitomo Chemical’s strategic priorities, but also a clear benefit that Sumitomo Chemical can bring to the partner through its technology, market access or infrastructure.
How do we work with potential partners?
As well as opportunities to become a strategic supplier/partner to emerging companies, Sumitomo Chemical looks for technologies that can create new products within existing business units or even create completely new areas of business for us within our strategic priorities. This means that we have interest in technologies across a range of Technology Readiness Levels (TRL)s – and we have developed flexible ways of working to support their exploration, evaluation, research/adoption and commercialisation.
| Multi-year partnership with Zymergen (April 2019) Read More |
| · Vision of developing next-generation materials by leveraging biology · Discover novel and improved molecules to bring to market specialty materials to better serve the e.g. electronics industry |
| Multi million investment in Nanoscent (Dec 2019) Read More |
| · Development of a diagnostic, scent recognition sensor to achieve the visualization of people’s physical condition, which is a key to a next-generation healthcare platform · Deepen strategic and technological collaboration and create new healthcare businesses. |
| Significant investment in Sweegen Inc (Oct 2019) Read More |
| · Vision of global sugar reduction and strategically support networks · Expansion of manufacturing to produce non-GMO stevia sweeteners · Extending relationship into new ventures in the field of Synthetic Biology |
| Multi $10m strategic investment in Conagen (April 2020) Read More |
| · Vision of bio-designing and introducing sustainable, green, bio-based chemicals to the market · Accelerate Conagen’s R&D for the design of green chemicals |