Q&A with Ginger Rothrock, senior director, HG Ventures
1. First, just give us a quick overview of who you work for, what you do, and how long you have been doing it.
HG Ventures launched in 2018 as the corporate venture arm of the Heritage Group, a multi-billion dollar private conglomerate in the traditional industrial sectors of construction, environmental services and speciality chemicals.
We invest $50m per year in entrepreneurs working in our core business areas and those adjacent and disruptive. We also launched a Heritage-sponsored Techstars accelerator to support early-stage startups in the hardtech sector. I work across all aspects of our venture group.
As a serial scientific entrepreneur myself, I feel a strong connection with the entrepreneurs we engage with and have the operating background that enables me to understand the commercialisation challenges facing their growth. I aim to understand their companies from a technical and business perspective, learn the entrepreneurs’ personal journey, and make the Heritage Group investment process as transparent as possible.
I enjoy connecting these entrepreneurs to the business and technical resources we have across the Heritage Group. I also relish the mentoring aspect of my roles; I also served this past year as The Heritage Group Lead for our Techstars accelerator, which is co-located with our Ventures group.
I am a board member for one of our portfolio companies and will be transitioning from board observer to board member more this year. I currently serve as an observer on six of our portfolio Boards, advise on four others, and meet with most of our company CEOs quarterly.
2. What attracted you to CVC?
When I was an entrepreneur in the materials science sector, it struck me that VCs aspire and espouse to being “value-added investors” beyond their capital. Yet, my business challenges were often related to product scaling, hiring scientific talent and landing my first pilots with large industrial customers – challenges that were often beyond the assistance given by a traditional VC profile.
I was drawn to the truly win-win scenario of CVC, where I could provide needed capital and tangible value to startups while providing value to my own organisation in terms of exposure to market trends, new business models and emerging products and services that can drive future creative thinking and growth.
Today, I act as a liaison between our Ventures group and the 38 Heritage operating companies, responsible for connecting the entrepreneurs in our portfolio with the resources in Heritage operating companies to provide tangible value. Thus far, these resources include market insight, manufacturing and scale, and supply chain assistance, pilot testing of products, use of our facilities, introductions to our customers and service providers, and more. I feel confident that HG Ventures is earning the right to call ourselves a value-added investor.
3. What have been your greatest successes at your unit?
I am most proud of our small team’s ability to hit the ground running, crafting agile and professional processes for sourcing, diligence and deal execution that have enabled us to deploy over $75m in capital to 18 portfolio companies in just two and a half years (10 as lead investor) and hosted 19 pre-seed and seed-stage companies in our Heritage Group Accelerator powered by Techstars.
I am thrilled to share that our first exit [occurred] before the end of 2020, when Romeo Power, a battery technology company, and RMG Acquisition Corp, a special-purpose acquisition company, [merged], and Romeo Power [became] a publicly listed company with a unicorn valuation.
HG Ventures was an early investor in Romeo Power and a participant in the PIPE. As part of the partnership, The Heritage Group will support the co-development of a battery reuse and recycle facility for Romeo Power’s batteries near or at end-of-life. The Heritage Group has also committed to a pilot program expected to result in converting 500-plus diesel trucks in its fleet to BEVs using Romeo Power’s batteries between 2021 and 2025.
4. What have been your biggest challenges?
As a relatively new CVC group operating from a private [US] midwest industrial company, most of our challenges are related to the lack of brand recognition for The Heritage Group and, consequently, knowledge of our CVC arm. This challenge we are actively working to overcome as HG Ventures becomes recognised in the venture ecosystem through networking and deal execution, and The Heritage Group builds and executes on a new communications plan.
The Heritage Group is a 90-year-old, private, family-owned business that has seen impressive, consistent growth in a humble, midwestern manner. Four generations of family leadership and relationships with employees, customers and communities have formed a strong foundation.
Yet, just over a year ago The Heritage Group launched their first website. As The Heritage Group brand grows, so will knowledge of HG Ventures, now one of the largest sources of venture capital and most active venture groups in the midwest region and in the overall industrial sector.
5. What is your main professional ambition for the future?
Having been in the Venture community for two years now, I have been impressed by the “democratisation of entrepreneurship” – schools are offering entrepreneurial minors; the web and social media is teeming with resources for raising money and building a “Lean Startup”. However, these resources are most often directed at the tech sector. It is rare to find content directly relevant to the STEM entrepreneur – I was that entrepreneur. I mentor these entrepreneurs. I fund these entrepreneurs. These targeted commercialisation resources are difficult to find and needed by our community.
My unique set of experiences, including a doctorate degree in chemistry, company Founder, corporate incubation and commercialisation lead and now venture capitalist, puts me in a position to bridge this content gap with a mix of personal perspectives and curation of public resources.
In the next two to three years, my ambition is to develop my personal brand and that of HG Ventures as the top source of capital for STEM entrepreneurs. Part of that ambition is to develop a set of resources for these entrepreneurs covering topics from ideation and company formation to fundraising and growth. It is my intention that STEM entrepreneurs gain easy access to content tailored to their specific questions and needs, and that we can be a positive contribution to this growing ecosystem.
6. What do you think all CVCs could do better to make it a stronger industry?
The entrepreneurial ecosystem is continuing to become more transparent and open. Information on traditional venture firms and their investment scope is readily available online, and individuals within these firms are developing their own personal brands through Twitter, Medium, Substack and other outlets. I have found the CVC landscape to be more opaque, where many investment arms are difficult to locate online and even more difficult to decipher investment scope and process. Entrepreneurs value the authenticity and ease of finding and communicating with their investment partners.
I want more CVC functions to modernise their communications, sharing openly their investment interests at the corporate and individual level for the benefit of entrepreneurs and collaborative investment partners. CVC is a highly diverse investment community in terms of objectives, scope and processes – let us make it easier for entrepreneurs to identify CVCs that align with their needs and for us in the CVC ecosystem to establish strategic and personal relationships.
7. And, finally, for colour, what did you do prior to CVC or in your spare time?
Prior to HG Ventures, I was the Vice President of Technology and Commercialisation at RTI, a billion-dollar not-for-profit research institute. I had the opportunity to design, develop and execute a commercialisation, incubation and investment function for RTI’s R&D portfolio, comprising over 2,000 projects per year.
I also acted as principal investigator and program manager for a number of highly collaborative applied R&D programs for polymer and other advanced material products in controlled-release systems, cleantech, and structural materials. Prior to RTI (2004-2011), I was a Co‐Founder and Principal Technologist of Liquidia Technologies, a dynamic mid‐stage biotechnology firm that went public in 2018.
In my spare time, I volunteer in areas I am particularly passionate about – mentoring women and student entrepreneurs in STEM fields, in formal and informal venues. In the evenings and weekends, I can be found with my husband, two daughters Hailey (11) and Jovie (7), and dog Darcy enjoying the outdoors or adding features to our (embarrassingly massive) Lego City!
