Sven Harmsen, PhD, joined Saint-Gobain in April 2019 as Director External Ventures. Previously, Sven (as Investment Director) had started the Performance Materials investment team as part of M Ventures (the corporate venture arm of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany) in 2016. In 2012 Sven had relocated to the greater Boston area to work as Investment Principal at BASF Venture Capital (BVC), where he established BVC’s East Coast office in Cambridge, MA to coordinate investment activities in the eastern half of North America. Sven served as a Board Director for Advanced Bionutrition (ABN) and as a Board Observer for Aspen Aerogels and SLIPS Technologies. Originally he was hired by BASF as Head of Global New Business Development for its agrochemical division. Before joining BASF SE, Sven was responsible for business development after heading the medicinal chemistry department of a VC backed (now publicly listed) biotech company called 4SC near Munich.
Following a postdoc at Stanford University, Sven started his career in R&D at companies like Hoechst Pharma/HMR (today: Sanofi), and AgrEvo/Aventis CropScience (today: Bayer). Sven studied chemistry at the Julius Maximilians University Würzburg, Germany, and was awarded a Doctorate in Science. Sven is fluent in English and German.
Sven is attending / has attended:
The 2017 New York Venture Summit
The 2016 New England Venture Summit
The 2015 New England Venture Summit
The 2014 New England Venture Summit
The 2019 New England Venture Summit