Global Corporate Venturing Rising Stars Awards 2017: Carl Stjernfeldt

Carl Stjernfeldt, senior venture principal at Shell Technology Ventures (STV), the corporate venturing unit of the Anglo-Dutch oil major, said he was in the Guinness book of world records as part of a team effort.

A search for his entry could find no reference to corporate venture capital but his colleagues are certainly respectful.

Geert van de Wouw, managing director at Shell Technology Ventures, said: “Carl Stjernfeldt is our most active senior venture principal in terms of sourcing and closing deals. In the past 24 months, he has closed Maana, a big data company, Veros, developing predictive maintenance analytics, Quantico, developing artificial logging in the oilfield, and Welldog, an oilfield technology services company.

“Carl also led our fund-of-fund investments in Energy Ventures and Proventure, where we are a limited partner. He will be closing another three deals in the next two to three months and one more fund-of-fund investment. In short, he is a rising star in my team.”

Based in the US, Stjernfeldt is board observer at Maana, Veros Systems and Welldog and looking to “make minority equity investments in emerging vendors – startups – that can deliver outsized value to our parent while being financially sound and rewarding”.

He added: “That is, we are measured on both financial and strategic return, which is key for long-term success as a CVC. STV invest both in the oil and gas areas as well as new energies, a new business area for renewables and emerging business models in the energy sector, and my areas of focus include the intersection of software and IT with both oil and gas and new energies.”

Stjernfeldt joined STV in 2013 after nearly seven years as a general partner at Castile Ventures and an equal period time as a partner at Battery Ventures, both in the Boston region.

He said he was interested in joining STV as having “the chance and opportunity to learn the very exciting energy sector, learning while being on one of the top platforms in the world”, adding: “Working for a Fortune 5 company sometime brings a set of internal challenges that are unusual for an outsider. But the knowledge, presence and brand more than makes up for that.”

And whereas the goal might be to have a deal of such size and importance it is mentioned in Shell’s quarterly report, Stjernfeldt said the industry as a whole would be improved if it could “share deals with each other first, then to the outside world – think Kickstarter for CVCs only”.