Tom Baruch

Mr. Baruch is one of the pioneers of clean technology investing. Most recently (from 2014), he has invested primarily from his family office, Baruch Future Ventures (BFV), in early-stage companies focused on resource scarce and climate sensitive markets (energy, food/agriculture, water, air quality). The goal of Mr. Baruch’s focus at BFV is on transformative seed investments in the above sectors which can achieve “Unicorn” (market capitalization of >$1 billion) status in 10 years or less. His investment targets are “free” renewables (e.g., solar energy), the digitized power grid (e.g., Source Global [purified water]), and the alternative protein industry (Calysta, Geltor). Mr. Baruch is a Senior Advisor to Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV), a $2 billion venture capital fund founded by Bill Gates that is dedicated to investing in climate-impactful companies. Mr. Baruch is an active counselor to a unique conglomeration of BEV investment partners and startup company CEOs and Founders.

Mr. Baruch pioneered the field of venture capital investing in the commercialization of synthetic biology beginning with Maxygen (founded by Nobel Laureate, Frances Arnold), Codexis (CDXS:NASDAQ), where he served as Chairman for 15 years, Taxon (sold to DuPont), TeselaGen, Geltor, Checkerspot, Growcentia, Native Microbials, and Ellis Day. In 2011, Mr. Baruch founded Formation 8, a venture capital fund with $950 million under management where he currently serves as Emeritus Partner. Formation 8 is expected to return 6-7X of committed capital. In 1990, Mr. Baruch formed CMEA Capital with New Enterprise Associates (NEA), 3M Company, ExxonMobil, Ford Motor, and other LP’s. At CMEA, he was responsible for managing a total of $1.2 billion of capital across seven funds and personally led investments resulting in 18 IPOs including Aclara Biosciences, Codexis, CNano Technologies, Flextronics International, Intermolecular, and Symyx Technologies, and 8 M&A transactions including Silicon Spice (acquired by Broadcom). Ten of Mr. Baruch’s successful portfolio exits at CMEA were at market capitalizations of greater than $1 billion (“unicorn” category).

Earlier in his career, Mr. Baruch worked at Exxon Mobil for 12 years and later founded Microwave Technology, Inc. where he served as CEO for 6 years. Currently, he serves on the board of privately held companies and public service entities. Mr. Baruch was a founding member of Obama’s National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship, where he advised the U.S. Department of Commerce and the White House. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the U.S. Council of Competitiveness and a member of the Steering Committee of its Energy, Security, Innovation and Sustainability Initiative and the U.S. Manufacturing Competitiveness Initiative. Mr. Baruch has an engineering degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he currently serves as a Trustee, and a J.D. degree from Capital University. He is a registered U.S. Patent Attorney.