Climate tech venture capital fund, Icos Capital, held the “Collaborative Innovation Summit” at Bühler’s CUBIC Innovation Campus on February 29, 2024. The event brought together investors, industry leaders, and promising start-ups from the food, chemicals, and biotech sectors to accelerate sustainable solutions. The partners intend to grow their ecosystem of collaboration and innovation to enable start-ups to scale up their efforts in tackling some of the most urgent and complex challenges in the food and chemicals industries. The main day of the event was preceded by the “Collaboration Day” in “The Valley”. The idea of ways for start-ups to collaborate with industry partners such as The Cultured HUB, ERIDIA, and Bühler was discussed.

“Our goal at Icos Capital is to identify and invest in next-level innovations to accelerate sustainability. Through our model of collaborative venturing, we bring start-ups specialized in sustainable food, circular economy, sustainable industry, and decarbonization into win-win partnerships with corporates, supporting their growth,” says Peter van Gelderen, General Partner at Icos Capital. The start-ups Icos backed since 2006 have disrupted and led their respective markets and have benefited from the Icos approach of considering financial, social, and environmental returns in equal measure. “The event here at Bühler’s CUBIC Innovation Campus is a great example of turning challenges into opportunities: we’ve connected forward-thinking entrepreneurs with brilliant ideas to solve major problems with investors ready to identify the next start-up to take to the next level and brought in industry partners equipped with the know-how and technology to accelerate positive impact at scale,” adds van Gelderen.