Dr Rob Wylie - Partner, WHEB Ventures

Rob has focused on the clean technology investment area for almost 20 years. Prior to forming WHEB Ventures, Rob ran the WHEB Partnership with Kim Heyworth where together they helped over twenty cleantech companies secure investment, develop routes to market and establish management teams. A chemist with an MA and PhD from Cambridge University, Rob spent ten years in Shell’s agrochemical business before working with Rothschild’s Bioscience unit looking at clean technology investment opportunities. He then joined Kim at KPMG, where he spent three years advising on the development of a variety of environmental funds in Central and Eastern Europe. Rob has been an active participant on numerous Industry, UK Governmentand University cleantech advisory boards, including the CleantechNetwork European Advisory Board, the DTI’s Environmental InnovationAdvisory Group and the commercial advisory board for a consortium ofthe main London Universities (Imperial, King’s and UCL).

WHEB Ventures recently announced the fourth closing of its second cleantech venture fund and has to date, raised over £100 million. WHEB Fund 2’s new commitments include one from HPE Environmental Innovation Fund, managed by Hermes GPE LLP. Hermes was selected to be one of the fund of funds managers of the UK Innovation Investment Fund which was established in January this year to invest in low carbon and clean technology funds and to co-invest in companies. WHEB are the first to receive investment from this Fund.

Rob was a panelist for Financing Early Stage Clean Technology: Is Venture Capital Enough? 27.05.10. He also sat on the panel for 'Cleantech meets Biotech' 30.09.10.