GCV spoke with Giancarlo Savini, who has recently left Shell Ventures and joined Honeywell Ventures, the corporate venturing arm of industrial product and software producer Honeywell.

Savini has also worked as a business development, research and development, mergers and acquisitions adviser at industrial conglomerate General Electric. He was involved in Shell Ventures’ investments in energy management technology developer Autogrid, blockchain-powered energy storage solution developer LO3 Energy and Veros Systems. You recently joined Honeywell Ventures. What will be your new role at the venturing unit? I joined Honeywell Performance Materials and Technologies (PMT) in March 2021. PMT is the business unit which focuses on energy and sustainability. PMT comprises world-leading businesses such as universal oil products (UOP), process solutions and advanced materials. When you jump in your car, 60% of the time you are leveraging technology produced by Honeywell PMT. Venturing and partnerships is a key vehicle we want to reinforce to remain relevant and generate strategic optionality in this fast-moving energy market. In this role, I will shape venture’s internal process and lead our sustainability investments and partnerships. The focus will be predominantly on three areas Ð green hydrogen, energy storage software and plastic circularity. What is the investment mandate of Honeywell Ventures and the target ticket size? How has the vehicle evolved since it started? Honeywell Ventures was established in early 2017 and since then it has inked 23 direct investments, five investments in funds and generated two exits. Typical cheque size is $1m-$5m with global focus in early stage companies, series A to C. Will you be seeking to establish commercial relationships for the corporate parent with portfolio companies in the cleantech space? We want to really help the company grow and flourish. Thus, establishing a strong commercial value-adding partnership with Honeywell, early in the process, is the most important step. In every investment we evaluate to make sure we can add value to the investees in the form of incremental revenues, sales channels, co-marketing, joint research and development efforts and technology co-development. The energy space is generally very capital-intensive and requires a longer investment horizon than other areas. What has been the level of executive support for the vehicles in terms of exploring opportunities in the cleantech space? Honeywell has a long legacy rooted in sustainability-related innovation in capital intensive businesses. As examples, Honeywell developed sustainable refrigerants and aerosols reversing damage to the ozone layer and invented the catalytic converters. Today, Honeywell has a dedicated business division called sustainable technology solutions, led by Benjamin Owens with a leading position in renewable fuels. Moreover, Honeywell’s technology is present in 10 million commercial building where…

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