Julio Ramundo is heading up the paper and pulp provider's newly formed corporate venturing unit, which is targeting forestry sustainability and efficiency technologies.
Brazil-based pulp and paper producer Suzano unveiled a $70m corporate venture capital fund today that will invest in technologies that increase forestry efficiency and sustainability.
Suzano provides wood pulp for use in packaging as well as consumer products such as nappies. The new fund, Suzano Ventures, will invest in technologies that can improve forestry yield, measure and sequester carbon, support renewable pulp packaging and find new applications for pulp biomass.
The unit will invest at seed and series A stage in addition to supporting accelerator schemes featuring startups with technology that is yet to be commercially viable. Julio Ramundo, Suzano’s director of carbon businesses and corporate venture, will run the fund.
Suzano hired Ramundo in 2019 after he spent more than a decade at BNDES, most recently as deputy managing director of the Brazilian development bank’s industrial and services division. He is putting together a team that will be aided by research and development staff in Brazil, China, Israel and North America.
Ramundo said: “Suzano has established Suzano Ventures to ensure support and finance for the fast-growing ecosystem of entrepreneurs who are bringing fresh thinking and ideas to the bioeconomy and the wider environmental challenges we are all facing.
“Suzano Ventures will provide financial and strategic support to these enterprises and, using Suzano’s wider network and resources, will help to accelerate sustainable solutions for the pulp sector and beyond.”
The corporate also revealed it invested €5m ($6m) in Finland-based sustainable textile producer Spinnova in 2017, four years before it went public in Helsinki. Suzano is also investing approximately €22m to build Spinnova’s first commercial facility, which is slated to begin operations this year.
