INDIANAPOLIS, IN – June 28, 2022 –

HG Ventures, the corporate venture arm of The Heritage Group, today announced its participation in a $25 million Series B raise for Circulor, the only proven technology solution that tracks materials, emissions, and compliance within manufacturing and recycling supply chains. Circulor’s suite of technologies gives users data-driven insights into their business to enable responsible sourcing. Through blockchain and AI software as a service (SaaS) technology, Circulor’s platform advances traceability, transparency, and risk management solutions.

“Circulor is helping companies track emissions and prove the sources of their raw materials, which enables decarbonization and mitigates supply chain risks,” said John Glushik, Managing Director at HG Ventures. “HG Ventures is excited to support Circulor’s team in their mission to develop complete industrial supply chain traceability and resiliency.”

Manufacturers in the automotive, extractive, recycling, and construction industries are looking for solutions to track the sources of their materials and decarbonize their operations. Leaders in these industries are seeking a supply chain that is traceable, ethical, and sustainable. Circulor enables them to be transparent about the source of their raw materials, increase the use of recycled plastic, reduce the flow of plastics into oceans, cut greenhouse gas emissions, and decarbonize their materials.

“We’re thrilled to partner with HG Ventures to advance secure and responsible supply chains,” said Douglas Johnson-Poensgen, Circulor CEO. “Digital transparency allows companies to track their material use and be more ethical and informed, and we’re proud to be working with such an experienced partner as we grow.”

HG Ventures invests in growing businesses that are disrupting traditional industries—be it through new processes, technology or materials. The team excels in partnering with visionary entrepreneurs to achieve dramatic business growth. HG Ventures is the corporate venture arm of The Heritage Group, which has more than 5,000 employees and 30 operating companies worldwide and is committed to a sustainable world.

 

INDIANAPOLIS, IN – May 17, 2022 –

 HG Ventures, the corporate venture arm of The Heritage Group, today announced that its Managing Director, Kip A. Frey, has once again been named to the Global Corporate Venturing (“GCV”) Powerlist 2022—representing the top 1% of corporate venturing leaders spearheading the industry’s future. Frey was named to the Powerlist for the third straight time, and this year ranked among the top 25 in GCV’s global rankings.

The Powerlist “allows the strategic, financial and leadership components of the best leaders to shine through,” said James Mawson, Editor-in-Chief of Global Corporate Venturing. “With more than 6,000 corporations having invested minority stakes in private entrepreneurs over the past decade, every year selecting the Powerlist gets harder and harder.” But, he added, “the persistence of the top performers in building networks, selecting deals and adding value remains strong.”

The Heritage Group tapped Frey to launch HG Ventures in 2018, leveraging his more than 25 years of experience in entrepreneurial and venture capital leadership. He previously served as Vice Provost for Innovation & Entrepreneurship at Duke University, and before that was a partner at venture capital firm Intersouth Partners. Additionally, Frey has served as CEO on seven different startup ventures. Under Frey’s leadership, HG Ventures has invested more than $178 million across 30 hardtech startups, all aligned with The Heritage Group’s core mission of providing sustainable solutions in specialty chemicals, environmental services, and transportation infrastructure.

“Congratulations to Kip and our HG Ventures team,” said Amy Schumacher, CEO of The Heritage Group. “From a standing start in 2018, Kip created a fully-functioning business unit that has become a central hub for innovation, disruptive investment, and entrepreneurial spirit at The Heritage Group. He has recruited a world-class team, produced stellar financial returns, enhanced the culture at THG, and built a globally prominent corporate venturing brand. These results have far exceeded our most optimistic expectations.”

HG Ventures Managing Director John Glushik was named a GCV Emerging Leader in 2022 and Senior Director Ginger Rothrock was named a GCV Rising Star in 2021.

 

INDIANAPOLIS, IN – February 10, 2022 –

HG Ventures, the corporate venture arm of The Heritage Group, today announced that Managing Director John Glushik has been recognized among the “Top 50 Emerging Leaders” list by Global Corporate Venturing (GCV), the leading industry publication for corporate venture capital.  

 Glushik was selected from more than 20,000 industry professionals across 2,500 corporate venturing units. The Emerging Leaders Award recognizes accomplished professionals who are considered the “heir apparent” and the “glue” in their corporate venture capital team. Glushik received the award during the GCV Rising Stars and Emerging Leaders 2022 ceremony, held virtually on Feb. 10. 

 At HG Ventures, Glushik leverages more than 20 years of venture investor experience to grow partnerships with innovative, high-growth companies that support a sustainable future in materials, infrastructure, environmental solutions and industrial systems. Glushik helped start HG Ventures in 2018 after serving as general partner at Intersouth Partners and managing director of the Duke Angel Network, covering all aspects of venture investment and portfolio management.  

“I’m honored to be recognized in this year’s Emerging Leaders list by the esteemed GCV team,” said Glushik. “It is a privilege to work with such a talented, diverse and passionate team of experts and innovators who are building solutions to our most pressing challenges. I look forward to continuing our work driving meaningful innovation in critical industries.” 

Glushik is the third HG Ventures executive recognized among GCV’s leaders. Senior Director Ginger Rothrock was named a GCV Rising Star in 2021 and Executive Vice President Kip Frey was included in the Powerlist Top 100 leaders of in-house venture capital groups in 2020 and again in 2021. 

“John’s commitment to trust, transparency and partnership perfectly demonstrates our team’s values,” said Frey. “His unwavering focus on these tenets is key to our long-term, collaborative and successful engagements with entrepreneurs, investors and ecosystem of experts.” 

 

Media Contact:  

Regan Keller 

Antenna Group for HG Ventures 

hg.ventures@antennagroup.com 

 

About HG Ventures:  

HG Ventures is the corporate venture arm of The Heritage Group, headquartered in Indianapolis, Ind. HG Ventures supports innovation and growth across The Heritage Group by investing and partnering with innovative, high-growth companies to support a sustainable future. The team leverages the world-class expertise of The Heritage Group operating companies and research center to offer a unique value proposition to its portfolio company partners. www.hgventures.com.  

INDIANAPOLIS, IN – January 11, 2022 –

HG Ventures, a venture capital investment firm and division of The Heritage Group that supports a sustainable future in materials, infrastructure, environmental solutions and industrial systems, announced today that it has invested in and formed a strategic partnership with American Rare Earth LLC, a subsidiary of the American Resources Corporation (NASDAQ:AREC) to scale up recycling of batteries, magnets and e-waste to recover and supply critical and rare earth metals to U.S. and global markets and contribute to the circular economy. Through its investment, HG Ventures has an ownership stake in American Rare Earth, as well as rights and warrants for subsequent investment.

The companies will pair American Rare Earth’s recycling technology and capabilities processing waste materials to recover and produce raw materials, with HG Ventures’ and The Heritage Group’s industry knowledge and supply chain expertise and connections to scale U.S. rare earth and critical metals production to supply manufacturers of electric motors and magnets.

With American Rare Earths’ first purification facility expected to be operational in the first half of 2022, this partnership further strengthens American Rare Earth’s foothold into various feedstock relationships for battery and magnet material including from spent electric vehicle and windmill motors and e-waste for which there is currently no comprehensive, sustainable, end-of-life solution. Additionally, the partnership opens up relationships with public and private customers demanding these purified metals to drive the growth and success of the electrification and clean tech markets while advancing national security interests.

American Rare Earth and Heritage are expediting the path to being the United States’ first and lowest cost producer of domestically-sourced, purified and sustainable battery and magnet metals.

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INDIANAPOLIS, IN – September 24, 2021 –

The Heritage Group and Techstars are teaming up for the third year to help 10 startups scale their innovative ideas.

This year’s cohort represents diverse geographies and industries within the hard tech and deep tech spaces. Over the next 13 weeks, each startup will scale their business and go to-market strategy under the guidance of mentors from Techstars and THG’s networks. Founders will work with experts to accelerate and overcome some of hard tech’s common challenges, including planning commercialization strategy, demonstrating proof of technology, securing pilot project opportunities, and acquiring new customers to grow revenue streams.

“We identified remarkable founders working towards building innovative solutions in some of the world’s toughest industries,” said Scott Kraege, Techstars Managing Director. “Our 2021 class of companies align with the most pressing areas of innovation for The Heritage Group including: material science, energy, chemicals, and construction technology. Every person involved in our program – from the founding teams to The Heritage Group’s 5,000+ employees to the Techstars team – shares the mission of solving these challenges.”

Introducing the 2021 class of The Heritage Group Accelerator powered by Techstars:

Cancrie

Cancrie transforms waste into superior quality advanced battery material to increases the efficiency of energy storage devices through a simple drop-in solution.

www.cancrie.co

 Envicore

EnviCore’s technologies offer the mining industry a revolutionary circular oil tailings mitigation and dewatering solution that provides unique environmental benefits.

www.envicoreinc.com

 InFLOWS

InFLOWS AI creates next-gen Computer Aided formulation toolboxes for chemists, enabling R&D labs to design chemicals faster, smarter, and cleaner.

inflows-ai.com

 Simplifyber

Simplifyber is transforming fashion’s antiquated factory system into sustainable, advanced manufacturing.

www.simplifyber.com

 Kintail

Kintail simplifies and integrates analytics for commercial construction firms, empowering construction teams to make smarter, faster decisions.

www.kintail.io

 Innovakote

Innovakote turns used powder coating into fresh powder through its proprietary recycling process, eliminating waste and reducing the carbon footprint of the industry’s supply chain.

www.innovakote.com

 Engaged Citizens

Engaged Citizens’ AI-powered platform delivers the government data you need so you can stay focused on your business.

www.engagedcitizens.us

 Carbon Limit

Carbon Limit transforms CO2 pollution into carbon negative sustainable resources and products we use everyday.

www.carbonlimit.com

 Cybrik

Cybrik has developed an enterprise platform that captures and automates administrative data for project management teams in the engineering and construction industry.

www.cybrik.ai

 Broadloop

BroadLoop is a virtual fleet logistics and dispatch intelligence platform that brings material producers, contractors, and fleet operators together to drive down costs and increase job profitability

www.meta-ct.com

INDIANAPOLIS, IN – July 29, 2021 –

For the second year in a row, EVP New Ventures Kip Frey has been included in the Global Corporate Venturing Powerlist 100—the industry compendium of the one hundred most influential corporate venture capitalists in the world.

Announcing the Powerlist for 2021, GCV Editor-in Chief James Mawson commented on its significance: “The GCV Powerlist is designed to uncover the ‘vital few’ who are responsible for tens of hundreds of billions of dollars invested in the entrepreneurs who turn ideas into products and services.”

Frey joined corporate venture leaders from companies like Intel, Samsung, Alibaba and Amazon in making the Powerlist, which drew from a candidate pool of more than 2,000 corporate venturing units around the globe. GVC added that the scope and reach of corporate venture sponsors—in this case The Heritage Group—played an important role in this year’s selection: “These men and women from around the world also bring the power of their parent companies to bear to scale up prototypes and pilots into things we can all benefit from.”

The Heritage Group’s corporate venture arm, HG Ventures, was founded in 2018 and has quickly developed into one of the leading “hard tech” investors in the world—closing more than 25 investments in the past two years. Congratulations Kip!

LEXINGTON, KY – June 9, 2021 – PowerTech Water announced the closing of its oversubscribed Series B financing round led by HG Ventures. The funds will be used to meet the rising demand for sustainable industrial water treatment, accelerate corporate partnerships, and expand operations in Lexington, Kentucky.

PowerTech Water’s ElectraMet™ and INCION® brand water treatment systems offer an environmentally superior solution at a reduced cost for industrial manufacturing and waste streams.   This novel approach disrupts the conventional labor-intensive, chemical-based water treatment processes that have become ubiquitous over the past 50 years. ElectraMet will play an important role in modernizing wastewater treatment and reducing waste for manufacturers, municipalities, and mines.

“In 2021, US-based manufacturing has picked up, and the demand for ElectraMet systems skyrocketed. We are pleased to partner with HG Ventures, the State of Kentucky, and the local Bluegrass Angel Network in this Series B financing round to expand our capabilities and meet the demand,” said Cameron Lippert, Chief Executive Officer of PowerTech Water.

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INDIANAPOLIS -May 12, 2021 –

Transcend Software Inc. (“Transcend”), a SaaS provider of generative design and engineering automation tools to the global engineering, construction, technology/OEM, and utility sectors announces the completion of a $10M Equity Investment led by Aspen Capital Group, HG Ventures, and PureTerra Ventures, also with participation from existing investor Vespucci Partners.

Transcend’s SaaS platform, the Transcend Design Generator (“TDG”), is the market’s first fully integrated water treatment design platform, enabling industry participants to design more sustainable water and wastewater facilities in a fraction of the time and cost compared to traditional, manual methods. Designs can easily incorporate new technologies and be assessed for CAPEX, OPEX, land footprint, carbon footprint, and other variables with a level of detail & accuracy that are typically much too time and cost prohibitive for the preliminary engineering phase.

Developed by many of the world’s leading experts in water and wastewater engineering, TDG has been used since 2013 to design over 7,500 treatment facilities to date. Transcend will use the proceeds from the investment to drive continued innovation across the water infrastructure market.

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INDIANAPOLIS -May 11, 2021 – Pretred, a Colorado-based company that produces industrial barriers from >95% recycled materials, has announced a $3 million seed investment led by HG Ventures, the corporate venture arm of The Heritage Group. Pretred will use this investment to scale its US-based tire and plastic recycling process to meet the growing demand for green construction products. Pretred is a graduate of the 2020 cohort of The Heritage Group Accelerator Powered by Techstars^®, a program for mentoring and developing early-stage companies in the hardtech industries of advanced materials, infrastructure, and environmental services.

Tire waste has become a worldwide environmental challenge, with >1 billion sent to the landfill or burned every year. The Pretred technology recycles approximately 65,000 tires for every mile of barriers (880 barriers). These barriers reduce 98% of equivalent CO₂ emissions vs. concrete barriers, providing a sustainable product for use in construction, roads, parks and beyond.

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