Corporates and their significant importance for growth

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM , October 31: There is an ongoing discussion in the venture capital and entrepreneurship world about the role corporations (“corporates”) can play in the development of young companies and tech ecosystems. Some people see the value corporates bring such as providing and/or accessing technical expertise and distribution channels, helping test new markets, and accelerating the development of their technology through agreements or through corporate venture/M&A. There are also detractors of corporates, who think that they bring the chains of caution, process, and bureaucracy, and might not have the best intentions in terms of having a conflict of interest and potentially deliberately slowing down the speed to market of a competitor or bringing innovation to the marketplace. Bringing in a corporate venture fund as an investor in their company can also pollute the exit for a VC. At OSKARE CAPITAL, we believe in the former but are careful to ensure that the latter is not realized when we work with corporates. Alex Ouimet-Storrs, one of Oskare’s founders, was the MD of Solvay Ventures (EMEA) and understands how corporates work. Through our experience, we understand how to avoid the pitfalls of working with corporates and ensure that our companies and corporates have a balanced relationship. We are investing in a nascent industry and new medical frontier. If you want to succeed in the long run, you need to help build an ecosystem around you with early-stage companies, sources of funding (public and private, including VC), corporates, and research institutes. Corporates play a vital role in developing applications, accessing markets, and accelerating technology developments. Given our deep understanding of how corporates work, we pride ourselves on our ability to avoid “rookie” mistakes when working with them on the fund and portfolio. The medical cannabis sector is often misunderstood to consist solely of growing and distributing cannabis. This, we are happy to say, is very far from the case. Whilst in the past the industry has been plagued with a poor reputation, we have spent a lot of time educating investors on the potential of the endocannabinoid system (a regulatory system in the human body that is activated by a state of disease, inflammation, or infection) and we are now seeing a significant uptick in typically conservative investors taking stakes in the fast-growing sector. We take a strong medical standpoint and have a good understanding of the pain points in the medical cannabis industry that need to be fixed in order to bring new plant-based medicine to a growing patient base. We are committed to those things that will build the sector’s “ecosystem”. The industry still has a lot of stigmas, and involvement now in the form of strong corporate partnerships can help solve this problem. Corporate will play a vital role in helping our portfolio companies develop and bring more of these much-needed medications to market. We recently introduced DMS’s venturing arm (DSM Ventures) to Octarine, our first investment made in 2020. Octarine is a synthetic biotech company developing novel cannabinoids (glycosides) with superior properties as well as other applications (psychedelics, sustainable dyes, and antimicrobials). DSM Ventures recently invested in Octarine’s Pre-Series A round alongside Oskare, we believe that they bring a significant amount of value through their technical knowledge and access to markets. Oskare Fund I had a first close this summer and as we continue to raise capital for our second close, we are proud to have a multinational pharmaceutical company as an investor and strategic partner. We also brought on a top 3 pharma industry CRO as a strategic partner, to help some of our portfolio companies accelerate clinical developments. Oskare Fund I is the first fund of its kind in this sector and industry. We believe in forging ties and creating win-win opportunities for our portfolio companies and selected corporate partners. This is a key component of our strategy as a fund and will certainly benefit our portfolio companies.

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