GCV Powerlist 2016: Iain Cooper, Schlumberger

Iain Cooper, manager of technology investments, moved to head oil services company Schlumberger’s corporate venturing deals in 2007 after his first 15 years with the company. In this role he looks after early-stage technology scouting and corporate venturing for Schlumberger Worldwide.

But no longer alone. Last year, Schlumberger Technology Investments has recruited Jake Latcham from OneSubsea, a subsea oil production company which is jointly owned by Schlumberger and oil and gas company Cameron. The hire took Cooper’s team to three people, with Latcham joining Christina Karapataki who was added to the team in 2012.

Latcham is an MIT graduate like Karapataki, reflecting Cooper’s desire to have a team of technical experts. He said: “I have always thought the financial stuff is the easier side. I always like to pick people with domain expertise and leverage our group by looking at tech, which is much more fun.”

Cooper himself gained a PhD in meteorology from Reading University between 1988 to 1992, before which he studied mathematics and physics at Bristol University. He then joined Schlumberger as a research scientist in 1992 before working his way up to product development manager by 2007, when he founded the corporate venturing group. He keeps active on the creative side, with 26 granted US patents and a few more pending.

Schlumberger has now done 24 deals, with 18 equity investments, five licensing deals and one early-stage convertible loan. Schlumberger’s recent deals included backing Celluforce, a manufacturer of Nanocrystalline cellulose, a green material that Cooper said “has various oil and gas applications”.

Schlumberger’s Technology Investments is also making a significant push to find more deals in information technology.

Cooper said: ”Our focus over the last year has really been software. We opened our Software Technology and Innovation Centre in Menlo Park. We are looking at areas like machine learning, cybersecurity, robotics and the industrial internet of things.

“Christina has been spending roughly two weeks of every month in Silicon Valley. Christina closed a deal with Onapsis, a Boston-based IT Security provider. Schlumberger also closed on Houston Mechatronics, formed by a group of Nasa roboticists.”

Cooper said his personal recent focus has been in areas around alternative energy and the cleaner aspects of hydrocarbon extraction, with a couple of deals in this area hoping to close by July.