Bloomberg — Suzano SA (SUZB3), the world’s largest wood pulp producer, is creating a venture capital unit to invest in startups that may help the company develop new products and technologies for the green economy.
The corporate venture arm will have $70 million to invest, said Julio Ramundo, Suzano’s director for corporate venture and carbon business. It aims to buy minority stakes in companies for potential partnerships in creating new products out of wood pulp, finding innovations in the use of packaging, boosting yields on planted forests and developing tools in the carbon-credit market.
“We’ll look for companies that match Suzano’s new business strategies,” Ramundo said.
The Sao Paulo-based company has a goal to replace 10 million tons of packaging made from fossil fuels with wood pulp by 2030. Suzano already has 340 researchers in Brazil, Israel, Canada and China working to make green products made from eucalyptus pulp.
Ramundo said Suzano wants to replicate the success it had with Finnish startup Spinnova, which will start the production of textile fiber made from wood pulp this year. Suzano made an initial investment on Spinnova in 2017 with 5 million euros ($5.2 million). The company went public last year and now has a market value of about 352 million euros.