SQM Lithium Ventures, SQM Lithio’s corporate venture capital, in partnership with Endeavor, presented the 10 startups selected to be part of its Corporate Acceleration Program in its commitment to solving problems in the water, lithium and electromobility verticals.
The companies chosen in GEN3 propose innovative solutions to address challenges in the fields of lithium, water and electromobility, each receiving a contribution of USD $25,000 from SQM Lithium, in addition to strategic support for the definition and scaling of their businesses.
With this, they will also be able to access subsequent financing through the SQM Lithium Ventures fund, in addition to other instances of economic and strategic support.
Those who will make up this third generation are:
- WATER CHALLENGES: Binario Tech (Chile), Enaxiom (Australia) and IX Water (United States) for the water vertical;
- LITHIUM SECTOR CHALLENGE: Magmatic (Austria), NIU NIU Resources Inc (Mexico), LIS (China), Neu Materials (Singapore) and BioMetallum (Argentina)
- ELECTROMOBILITY CHALLENGE: RiDERGY GmbH (Germany) and ZeMaq Chile SpA (Chile)
This call was a space for collaboration between various actors of local and global entrepreneurship, bringing together from universities to networks of investors, large companies, collaborators, academics, students and schools, all being called to contribute and inspire to contribute in three areas of utmost urgency.
The latest call brought together more than 250 startups from Chile and other countries. Between January and March, a rigorous evaluation process was carried out by the technical and commercial teams of SQM Litio and Endeavor; culminating in the difficult selection of the 10 companies that make up the third generation.
“(…) We are very excited about everything that will come with this new generation of entrepreneurs from SQM Lithium Ventures, we have no doubt that it will have a very positive impact for the entire country,” explained Melissa Gajardo, Executive Director of the CORFO Antofagasta Committee who was present at the Kickoff in the city of Antofagasta.
“This is a program that seeks entrepreneurs from Chile and the world (…) This is the starting point for four months of very intensive work with mentors from SQM Lithium Ventures and Endeavor where they will be able to access investment instances and eventually raise a first round of seed financing to scale their projects,” explained María de los Ángeles Romo, Director of SQM Lithium Ventures.
“We are proud to have a new generation of entrepreneurs, whom we see as a complement to what we are creating, with very disruptive ideas that will help us understand new technologies and thus leverage their creations with our knowledge,” said Carlos Díaz, executive vice president of SQM Litio.
