Tom Whitehouse discussed innovation at BP with Isaam Dairanieh, managing director of BP Ventures, and group head of technology David Eyton.
Tom Whitehouse, chairman of London Environmental Investment Forum, welcomed Isaam Dairanieh, managing director of oil company BP’s investment subsidiary BP Ventures, and David Eyton, BP’s group head of technology, to discuss BP’s vision today at the Global Corporate Venturing Symposium.
Eyton started with a short trip down memory lane, exploring how BP’s corporate venturing subsidiary grew out of iits initial investments in alternative energy to eventually serve the company as a whole.
The unit is now very much aligned with BP’s overall corporate strategy, seeking out investments in a range of sectors such as biotechnology, nuclear physics and geology.
BP Ventures takes a portfolio approach to its investments, and many of its decisions are made with a long-term view. Dairanieh noted that some technologies BP has backed will only be game changers in the mid-to-far future, possibly within decades.
In addition to investing in startups, BP also makes acquisitions, licenses technology and establishes spin-outs.
The company has been criticised in the past, as Whitehouse pointed out, for its lack of investments in renewable energies. Eyton acknowledged the 2010 oil spill disaster but insisted that the company has a clear vision for renewable energy, pointing out that BP has backed biofuel, wind and solar energy startups in the past.
Eyton concluded by pondering how digital technologies will be able to significantly enhance how the company does business, even though it is still very much rooted in the physical world. Such technology, he said, would also be able to ensure BP can conduct its operations much more safely.
