Eric Toone, who previously led the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Initiative at Duke, and David Danielson, a precourt energy scholar at Stanford, have joined Breakthrough Energy Ventures.
Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV), a venture fund aimed zero-carbon energy startups, has hired the first two employees for its science team since the $1bn vehicle was launched in December 2016.
Eric Toone, who had led the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Initiative at Duke University, and David Danielson, a Precourt Energy Scholar at Stanford University, are now executive managing director and science lead and managing director for science, respectively.
Both had been founding or first employees in 2009 for the US Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (Arpa-E).
Toone also holds a PhD in organic chemistry from Toronto University and has founded three pharmaceutical companies – Vindica Pharmaceuticals, Valanbio Therapeutics and Aerie Pharmaceuticals – that scaled research into commercially-viable products.
John Arnold, BEV board member, founder of Centaurus Advisors and co-chair of the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, said: “BEV’s vision to transform the energy market requires the deep in-house scientific expertise that Eric and David provide.
“They understand the unique complexities of the energy technology landscape and what it will take to build the breakthroughs that will power the world in the future.”
In December 2016, members of the Breakthrough Energy Coalition formed BEV as an investor-led, for-profit, private-sector effort to build on the foundation of research laid by efforts such as Mission Innovation – a commitment by 22 nations and the European Union to double their investment in clean energy research and development.
