Global Corporate Venturing Rising Stars Awards 2018: #4 Akira Kirton

Akira Kirton has been managing director at BP Ventures 2012 and leads the corporate venture capital (CVC) group outside the Americas, which is where his other co-MD, Meghan Sharp, leads.

A GCV Rising Star in 2016, he was nominated this time by David Gilmour, who as vice-president of business development in group technology took responsibility for BP’s venturing activities at the end of 2016 after running Air BP, the aviation fuel supply business.

Having spent the past 16 years of his career at the UK-listed oil major and six years in corporate venturing, Kirton started off on the firm’s European refining and chemicals graduate engineering program, before moving on to commercial roles, technology roles, and eventually to business developments roles focusing on energy investments.

Kirton also spent two and a half years on secondment from BP leading strategy for the UK Energy Technologies Institute (ETI), a £1bn ($1.2bn) public-private partnership between the UK government and industry, such as EDF, Hitachi, and Rolls-Royce, set up to push progress into low carbon energy system planning and technology development.

In 2012, Kirton moved to the venture side of the business, and gradually progressed from principal to director, to his current role of managing director for Europe and Asia for BP Ventures.

BP Ventures has invested more than $350m in at least 44 entities. As part of his role, Kirton acts as lead on downstream and low-carbon deals, and on spinouts.

He is board director for US-based green chemicals company Carbon Free Chemical, US-based green concrete and cement buildings maker Solidia Technologies, UK-based wood fibre technology specialist Tricoya Technologies, and UK-based digital aviation and on-demand private jet chartering company Victor.
In addition, he is board observer for California, US-based Fulcrum Bionergy, which turns household garbage into low-cost, low-carbon transportation fuels.

Kirton said: “What’s very exciting at BP Ventures is that we now have a much larger capital pool available. In 2017 alone, we committed close to $100m. 
“So we are neither capital-constrained, nor people-constrained. The key now is stimulating the right level of dealflow and working with our CVC/VC partners to deliver value from our investments.”

Over the past year, BP ventures helped establish commercial partnerships and deployments with 12 of its portfolio companies. “I think that’s quite unique given the size of our portfolio and of our team,” Kirton said.

As of November, the unit had closed five new investments last year, and was hoping to close a few couple more by year-end. New deals included a £5m round alongside Schlumberger Ventures and GE Ventures for upstream group BisN, two $20m BP-led series B rounds for digital groups Beyond Limits and Victor, a funding round for Drover, which is ride-hailing service Uber’s main partner in London, and a contribution to a $60m Omnitracs-led round for automated vehicle technology developer Peloton Technology. In addition to these, the unit also closed around 20 follow-on investments.

Another 2017 milestone for BP was the granting to bio-products portfolio company Fulcrum of a $150m green bond provided by the State of Nevada.

Kirton said: “This is all in service of the wider strategy and framework we announced as BP corporate in February 2016, where we committed to investing around $200m per year across five new sectors: digital, bio-products and low carbon, advanced mobility, carbon management and power storage.

“I guess the message we want to send out is that we are absolutely open for business, including in sectors that we did not necessarily invest in before, and with a broader remit to engage.”

Meanwhile, under CEO Bob Dudley, BP has committed to the voluntary Oil and Gas Climate Initiative’s $1bn OGCI Climate Investments fund, where Kirton is board member. The fund launched in late 2016 aiming to accelerate the commercial deployment of low emissions technologies and made its first three investments at the end of last year.

Looking ahead, Kirton identified three areas for BP Ventures. He said: “At GCV’s London Symposium last year, we said we were looking to create a broader one-stop shop for companies, entrepreneurs and investors to partner BP. Behind the scenes, we have been working very hard to create that concept.Another wish we have is to really keep going beyond normal VC deals, and see how CVC units can access scale-up capital and private equity PE structures, just as we did with the PE-backed entities Fulcrum and Tricoya. This ultimately also benefits the startups, as it broadens opportunities in terms of partnerships that can be created.

“Finally, we would like to really broaden our ecosystem. So far, we have enjoyed working with our fellow CVCs and VCs predominantly based in mainland Europe and the US, but lately we have spent a lot of time thinking about how to become more global and access opportunities that are less mainstream.”

Outside his role at BP, Kirton sits on the advisory board of the EIT Climate-KIC, an EU climate innovation initiative. Referring to himself as “an engineer with a law degree,” given his first class masters degree in chemical engineering from Imperial College London and then law degree from London School of Economics and Political Science, the managing director likes to recall that he was introduced to the world of CVC “completely by chance”.

His entry into the industry might have been serendipity but Kirton’s hard work, decency and skill has meant it has been a good fit.