Hunting The Material Unicorns

Unicorns – a privately funded start-up valued at $1 billion or more - are every Venture Capital Investor’s dream. It typically requires a highly disruptive and scalable technology targeting a large and growing market. The Materials Sector has however not been the posterchild for VC investors. IP Group has been active in this sector by supporting University spin-outs for the last 20 years and this is to share some of the lessons learned and suggestions on how this (almost) untapped unicorn source might eventually get unlocked.

Achim Hoffmann
Investment Director @ IP Group

Bio

Achim has been working in the entrepreneurial scientific tech sector for the last 20 years after raising government grant funding for his water disinfection technology start-up before joining IP Group as Deep Tech Investor in 2013. He launched his career at the Cleantech Fraunhofer Institute IUSE as an expert for membrane process development mainly for water applications but also got involved in a wide range of other industrial cleantech projects. Later he joined McKinsey & Company initially in the Düsseldorf and then the London Office as a strategy consultant working across a variety of client industries addressing mainly strategic client issues. Achim received his Chemical Engineering Diploma and Dr Degrees from Universities in Karlsruhe (KIT) and Dortmund, Germany. He also holds an MBA from Kellogg. While being involved in a wide variety of physical science investment propositions and heavily involved in the hands-on business building of portfolio companies at IP Group, he is specifically interested in material, engineering and water related opportunities.