dsm-firmenich Venturing

Funding, coaching, and support for innovative startups driving transformation in nutrition, health, and beauty.

Investing with purpose. Investing in progress.

For over two decades dsm-firmenich Venturing has been helping to power cutting-edge innovation, create impactful collaboration, and tackle some of the world’s toughest challenges.

In fact, since 2001, we’ve invested in more than 100 startups across a wide range of industries and sectors. Today, as part of dsm-firmenich, we connect founders and entrepreneurs to the financing, expertise, and technology they need to succeed.

Our venturing philosophy is fully aligned with dsm-firmenich’s purpose of bringing progress to life. In other words, commercial success is essential – but so is delivering meaningful positive impact for people and planet. Now that’s what we call a good return on investment.

What we’re looking for

dsm-firmenich is a global leader in nutrition, health, and beauty – and our Venturing arm is always on the lookout for startups with the potential to accelerate innovation and make an impact together.

We’re on the ground in North America and Europe, where we engage with and invest in ambitious, promising startups. They’re all unique, but they all have one thing in common: their work is a strategic fit with our innovation ambitions for (at least) one of the four dsm-firmenich business units:

In addition, our scope includes technology platforms and digital tools that serve across sectors.

Explore our portfolio

How we work

We support inventors and entrepreneurs with everything from ideation to operating a sustainable business. We enable founders to thrive as independent entrepreneurs, but we’ll always be there to guide and advise, playing an active role in startup activities at the board level.

But it’s not just our team’s decades of collective venturing experience that our investees and partners can rely on. We can also draw on the impressive scientific, technological, and commercial resources of dsm-firmenich – to foster fruitful collaboration and bring progress to life.

Meet our team

Our five basic investment principles

Ticket size

We typically invest between €1m and €20m over a venture’s lifetime, with a first investment of €100k to €5m.

Ownership

We take minority ownership stakes, usually 5–25%.

Syndicate

We can lead investment rounds or follow another investor’s lead; either way, we prefer to syndicate deals to ensure there’s sufficient working capacity for future rounds.

Funding stage

We play from (pre-)seed funding through to IPO, as long as there’s a good strategic fit.

Collaboration

We’re active partners and usually offer to serve on the board of the startups we invest in.

Calling all partners in progress

If you’re an entrepreneur, scientist, or investor working to push the boundaries of what’s possible, get in touch.

Explore more

Our portfolio

Browse our portfolio of investee startups – accelerating innovation in nutrition, health, and beauty.
Our team

Meet the experienced global team behind dsm-firmenich’s venture capital activities – and discover our expertise in investment with a positive impact.
Contact us

Get in touch with different departments and functions in dsm-firmenich