Aperam Ventures

Strategic Investor, focusing on Decarbonization, Circular Economy, New Materials, Digitization, and Disruptive Business Models.

Overview

Aperam Ventures is the venture capital fund of Aperam group. We invest at pre-seed/seed stage with a ticket size ranging from €200k to €2m.
We can also do follow-on investments.

Our investment thesis is predicated on long term value creation with disruptive companies that will enable Aperam to build a strong  and sustainable competitive advantage in the future. In pursuing this goal, we are interested in identifying and assessing synergies between technology companies and Aperam’s core operations.

These synergies predominantly pertain to: 

  • Efficiency improvement,
  • Productivity enhancement,
  • Capital expenditure reduction,
  • Energy savings,
  • Maintenance cost reduction,
  • Quality improvement,
  • New product / new business model development.

Our main investment criteria are:

  • Bold Founders and high performing teams,
  • Attractive market opportunity embedded in a secular trend,
  • Full stack solution with high level of differentiation,
  • Economically viable and defensible Technology,
  • ESG is a core value,
  • USP represents a strategic value for Aperam.

Aperam Ventures is committed to create long term value for its portfolio companies by combining access to unmatched technological and commercial expertise of Aperam group and the agility, flexibility of a dedicated investment team to facilitate effective managerial decisions.

As a strategic investor, we are looking for companies that can support our growth journey and ESG commitments. We have a global mandate.

Investment Thesis

Our investment thesis encompasses the whole value chain of Stainless Steel/Alloys/Electrical Steel production & distribution. As a result, we focus on 4 areas:
(i) Advanced materials, (ii) Industry 4.0, (iii) Distribution, (iv) ESG.

Superior and Added Value Products
 rate Advanced Materials for Stainless Steel High Corrosion Resistance,
High Heat Resistance,
Surface Coating
Factory of the Future
 factory Industry 4.0 Big Data / Industrial, Analytics,
IoT,
Advanced Automation		 Computer Vision (Surface inspection),
Additive Manufacturing,
Health & Safety Digital tools
Smart and Agile Distribution
 shopping Customer Centric Ecommerce,
Dynamic Pricing (Artificial Intelligence),
CRM,
Marketing Analytics
Best-in-Class in ESG
 globe CO2, Energy & Waste CCUS,
Energy Efficiency / Energy Storage,
Fuel cells,
Charging Stations		 EV Vehicles,
Biogas,
Anaerobic digesters,
Recycling, water/waste management

Why Aperam Ventures ?

Our mandate is to build meaningful and impactful relationships with amazing entrepreneurs. In doing so, we believe that we will ensure long term value creation both to our portfolio companies and to Aperam Group. It is more than an intent, it is a strong commitment that we will honor on daily basis by focusing on tangible results, frugality, integrity and creative thinking. Aperam Ventures has also the opportunity to leverage a large panel of resources from Aperam group (e.g. CTO, R&D, Business Development, Innovation, Health & Safety, Legal, IT, HR, etc.) to support the development of its portfolio companies.

Our Values & Beliefs

  • Innovation & Entrepreneurship as driving forces for a better future
  • Integrity in everything that we do
  • Responsible and Sustainable stainless steel producer
  • Health, Safety and Learning are key for development

Our Commitments

  • We are value creation driven
  • We are with the Founders for the long haul
  • Straight talking to Founders
  • Founder Friendly & Founder First

Our Resources

  • Global Brand & Multi award winning Stainless Steel Firm
  • Best-in-Class Technical Expertise (Material Science, Engineering, Process)
  • Acess to Machinery & Equipments
  • Acess to Markets and Financial Resources

The Team

Our Investment and Portfolio Development team bring domain expertise and decades of experience to help companies scale and grow successfully and sustainably.

Thorsten ZIMMERMANN

Head of Investor Relations, M&A and Ventures – Luxembourg

Thorsten joined Aperam in 2018 as Head of Investor Relations. Since 2021 he also leads the M&A function including Aperam Ventures, Thorsten has more than 22 years of experience in the Metal and Mining industry. Prior to this, he was an IR manager at Lanxess, a listed German chemicals company. Thorsten spent 15 years at HSBC as Director of Equity Research in the Metals & Mining sector. Thorsten holds a Master in Business/Managerial Economics from the Goethe University Frankfurt. He also holds an MSc in International Banking & Finance from the University of Southampton. Thorsten is a CFA Charterholder. He is German and speaks English.

contact

Aurélie VAN HOUTE

Senior Manager M&A and Ventures – Luxembourg

Aurélie joined Aperam’s M&A team in 2022, following 17 years work experience at ArcelorMittal in M&A, Corporate Finance, Restructuring and Project Management. Since 2023, she took additional responsibility for Ventures investments. Prior to this, she was in charge of M&A for the Flat Carbon Europe perimeter. Earlier, she was CFO for the export-arm of the group, leading finance platforms in Dubai, Singapore, Chicago and Luxembourg, and CFO & Restructuring Manager in France. Aurélie also worked as greenfield project manager in the Africa CIS region. Aurélie holds a Master in Business Engineering from Louvain School of Management, in Louvain-la-Neuve. Aurélie is Belgian-Luxembourgish and speaks French and English.

contact

Portfolio

Since 2021, we have invested in 4 companies

visit website
visit website
visit website
read press release