Founded in 2005 by Chris Anzalone, the Benet Group is a unique firm that partners with leading scientists to co-found high growth companies. Benet is an “institutional entrepreneur” that leverages the deep experience and systematic approach of an institution to actively create and build companies out of raw science. We look for smart people doing good science (often from disparate and non-traditional places), build market-based business models around them, and organize companies capable of executing these models to exploit high-growth opportunities. This requires Benet to be a highly active operational component of portfolio companies initially. Senior Benet executives serve as founding interim CEOs for portfolio companies, and Benet as an institution provides complete initial upper management. As such, Benet portfolio companies have something on day-one that very few start-ups are able to attract: a seasoned management team and focused business strategy. Portfolio companies are, therefore, built in such a way that once Benet ceases everyday operational responsibilities, they are capable of competing for institutional capital and continued growth. Efforts are currently focused on the rapidly expanding bionanotechnology sector.

While Benet invests in its portfolio companies, we see our greatest role as bridging the basic research and finance communities. Research and financial institutions are not equipped to build companies. Research institutions develop raw science, not products; financial institutions invest in companies, not ideas and not science. Institutionalization dominates both science and finance, however there is no institutional presence in company-building. Individual entrepreneurs have traditionally been responsible for translating science into a running concern capable of attracting institutional capital. We believe that such heavy reliance on a small number of experienced scientifically literate entrepreneurs is inefficient and inadequate. This company-building process, like research and finance, will be made more effective and efficient if it is institutionalized, and this is where Benet is positioned. .