The New Jersey Economic Development Authority recently closed on two new investments through the New Jersey Innovation Evergreen Fund as the state burnishes its reputation as a center for biomanufacturing.
Nascent Materials Inc. received an initial qualified investment of $750,000 through an application for co-investment submitted by the Princeton-based venture capital firm SOSV. Additionally, Enquyst Technologies Inc. received an initial qualified investment of $3 million through an application for co-investment submitted by the New York City-based venture capital firm Eckuity Capital.
“The New Jersey Innovation Evergreen Fund is a groundbreaking tool aimed at strengthening New Jersey’s economy and backing high-potential startups by creating a self-sustaining cycle of investment for entrepreneurs seeking capital,” said Tim Sullivan, chief executive officer of the NJEDA.
The New Jersey Innovation Evergreen Fund, launched in 2022, is a unique tool to increase access to strategic resources and venture capital in New Jersey. Under the NJIEF, the state acts as an equity investor in early-stage companies, deploying up to $600 million into companies alongside professional venture capital firms. The fund has about $19 million of unallocated capital available to fund additional investments into high-growth businesses in New Jersey.
Nascent Materials develops cost-effective cathode active materials, a key input in lithium-ion batteries. Cathodes are the single-most expensive component of lithium-ion batteries, representing roughly 40% of total battery cell cost, with current cathode production capacity largely stemming from manufactures based in China.
Nascent Materials is working out of SOSV-sponsored HAX, a startup development program and Strategic Innovation Center for pre-seed hard-tech companies located in Newark. NJEDA’s investment of $750,000 into Nascent Materials’ seed fundraising round attracted additional international and out-of-state capital of $1,550,000 resulting in /private/ public multiplier of 2:1.
“While the U.S. has both the lithium resources and strong end-market demand for batteries, we continue to lag in one of the most strategic segments of the value chain: cathode manufacturing,” said Chaitanya Sharma, founder and CEO of Nascent Materials. “This bottleneck has left domestic cell manufacturers overly reliant on foreign suppliers for their most expensive and technically complex input. This investment from NJEDA enables us to expand our operations in New Jersey and build the foundation for a resilient, homegrown supply chain.”
Based in Princeton, SOSV is a global multi-stage venture-capital firm that operates early-stage deep-tech programs and has over $1 billion in assets under management. SOSV manages three development programs, including HAX, and has invested in 50 Newark-based businesses through the HAX Strategic Innovation Center (SIC) program. In June, the NJEDA also announced that it will partner with venture capital firm SOSV on a second project along with Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory to create an SIC in the Princeton area.
“New Jersey has become a critical hub for industrial deep tech, and Nascent Materials is exactly the kind of company we envisioned supporting when we chose Newark as the home for HAX HQ,” said Duncan Turner, general partner of SOSV and global Managing Director of HAX. “Their breakthrough cathode-manufacturing process tackles one of the most urgent challenges in U.S. electrification — sourcing battery materials that are affordable, reliable, and not dependent on foreign supply chains, enabling us to reshore critical manufacturing.”
Founded in 2017 and based in Short Hills, Enquyst Technologies is a manufacturing technology company that developed an advanced modular equipment and process platform designed to enhance biomanufacturing, specifically in the purification of complex drugs. The company’s platform focuses on the production of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), bispecific antibodies, protein therapeutics, biosimilars, and gene therapies, all of which are high-demand market segments in biologics, with mAbs being the largest.
Currently, the production capacity for these drugs meets only 50% of the market’s demand, with Enquyst looking to close that gap. Enquyst was founded in Boston where the technology has been developed but is shifting its core operations to New Jersey as a result of the proposed program investment and to leverage the Garden State’s strong biotech ecosystem.
“For decades, we have seen minimal innovation in bioprocessing, due to the highly regulated and conservative nature of the biotech and biopharma industries. Strategies fall short in meeting the cost and purification demands of today’s increasingly diverse biological medicines,” said Dr. Jason Criscione, founder of Enquyst Technologies. “Our platform technology is disrupting biological drug manufacturing by enabling truly continuous processing, delivering best-in-class purity with no yield loss, offering flexibility across diverse biological drug classes, and lowering downstream processing costs by more than 70%.”
Eckuity Capital was established in 2021 and is based in New York City. The firm invests in companies with solutions that it judges can achieve commercialization faster than traditional timelines, focusing on life sciences, devices and diagnostics, and digital health. Enquyst Technologies represents Eckuity’s first investment in a New Jersey-based business.
“Enquyst can fundamentally transform the purification process for complex molecules, but more importantly, change the way we think about manufacturing costs, time, and speed to market for the broader biologics industry,” said Vishal Jain, managing partner of Eckuity Capital.
