i3 - March/April 2019 - 8

Tech

By Cindy Loffler Stevens

I N N OVATO R

r. Carmichael Roberts, serial entrepreneur and venture
capitalist, has his finger on the pulse of the technology
industry. He is a founding partner of Material Impact,
a fund that seeks out transformative technologies and
builds them into enduring companies that solve realworld problems. The fund's strategy is based on
Carmichael's successful career as an entrepreneur-investor in
"materials," blending a unique business model of licensing university technology and commercializing it through targeted
partnerships with Fortune 500 companies.

MARCH/APRIL 2019

Carmichael is also a member of Breakthrough
Energy, a mission-oriented group committed to
changing the world by creating and building
companies that address the threat of climate
change and long-term sustainability of the
planet. As part of their work, Breakthrough
Energy will invest over $1B over the next 20
years to help scale products for energy, transportation, agriculture, and construction.
In 2007, Carmichael joined North Bridge Venture
Partners, where he financed and built several successful companies, including 1366 Technologies and
Foro Energy. Prior to North Bridge, he co-founded
several ventures, and served as President and CEO
of Arsenal Medical. He has also co-founded other
ventures including Soft Robotics, where he is the
chairman and co-founder. In 1999, Dr. Roberts was
named one of the world's top 100 young entrepreneurs by MIT's Technology Review.
Prior to his entrepreneurial career, Dr. Roberts
worked in business development at GelTex
Pharmaceuticals, and in new product and business
development at Dow Chemical (formerly Union
Carbide Corp.). He received his B.S. and Ph.D. in
organic chemistry from Duke University and completed his postdoctoral National Science Foundation
fellowship at Harvard University.
Dr. Roberts also holds an M.B.A. from the
MIT Sloan School of Management and serves as
an advisor for MIT's Deshpande Center for
Technological Innovation, Harvard's Nanoscale
Science and Engineering Center and the schools
of Science and Engineering at Duke University.
He also sits on CTA's Executive Board.
He recently talked with i3 about the importance
of resilient technologies in a turbulent world,
including the importance of clean water. He sits on
the board of Zero Mass Water, founded by Cody
Friesen, which recently exhibited at CES 2019. The
system relies on SOURCE Hydropanels that
extract as much as five liters of moisture out of the
air per day, producing clean drinking water.
I T I S I N N O VAT I O N

Photography by Webb Chappell

Co-Founder & Managing
Partner, Material Impact,
Carmichael Roberts, Ph.D.

http://materialimpact.com/ https://www.zeromasswater.com

i3 - March/April 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of i3 - March/April 2019