Founder Spotlight: Jonathan Bean

Materials are required not only for the smooth day to day operations of modern life but increasingly to meet the net-zero transition targets. Given the huge supply chain challenges around insecurity of supply there is a growing need to find better materials. Kelvin Au spoke with Dr. Jonathan Bean- the CEO and Founder of portfolio company Materials Nexus, a platform that uses AI to discover novel advanced materials with the exact properties needed by each client, using readily available starting materials.

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How did you get interested in your sector initially?

I have always loved to build things whether it be electronic circuits that do interesting things or writing my own software that visualises something I find interesting. I got to a point where I realised that I could only do so much with the materials which could be bought off the shelf and set out to discover new ones.

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How has your company progressed since inception to today?

In business the technical side is never the most difficult piece, the most difficult piece is managing and empowering people to build an efficient innovation machine. The companies that can get the best out of people get significantly more in terms of outputs and new technological advancements.

Technology wise, we have increased the scope of our AI from being able to discover simple materials to being able to optimise the processing/manufacturing of those materials to determine the best way to make them. This has been largely funded by InnovateUK.

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Do you have any news on contracts, products or pipeline we can share?

We have made some significant developments recently with our product development and partnership relationships, which we are very excited to share in due course. Separately we announced a partnership with Less Common Metals in the UK where we are removing a problematic material from the supply chain. Not only is this project technically innovative it also innovates on the centuries old business model in the materials industry.

Albert Slot, Managing Director of LCM said

“Critical materials are essential for various high-tech applications including electric vehicles, renewable energy systems, medical devices and information technology, and are often subject to supply chain vulnerabilities. By investing in projects such as EMPRESS, the potential exists to revolutionise the production processes of these materials, therefore reducing dependence on foreign sources and enhancing domestic control.” 

More longer term, our product development pipeline is a closely guarded secret, but we expect some interesting announcements imminently!

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Any new hires that you are excited to announce?

We have hired some fantastic new team members recently, including Andrew Reza and David Gunn, who are heading up our platform development and scientific functions respectively. Andrew has a MChem from the University of Oxford and a decade long career in software development. David has a PhD from the University of Cambridge and joins us from the Hartree Centre, Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC) - one of the UK's national labs. We are delighted to welcome to them to the team.

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Which geographies will you be focusing on most moving forward?

We are focussed internationally as we aim to find the best customers for each of our materials innovation areas. In a lot of cases those customers have subsidiaries in the UK or even operate outside of the UK. Generally speaking however, our overall opportunity has increased 100 fold since founding the company, so remaining market agnostic is important for us.

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What are the benefits of being based in Cambridge?

We are based in London with our registered office in Cambridge- the University being one of our early shareholders. The University has been extremely supportive of what we are doing and has opened a number of doors for potential employees, other investors and customers. coincidentally one of our new hires worked with one of the investors at Cambridge Enterprise in a previous life.

How do you see your product giving an edge to allied National Security?

The UK, EU and US are at a crossroads, we live in an increasing turbulent world, with the old world order breaking down. Our product gives flexibility for companies and states to diversify and secure their supply chains, de-risking the geopolitical turbulence that we are currently seeing. Whilst some of the mechanics of government process are often challenging to unravel, we have seen very clear and transparent direction from policy makers telegraphing positive opportunity in our sector.

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How do you balance on commercial and National Security opportunities? What’s an ideal mix for you?

We are focussed on working with the best organisations to deliver a more prosperous and net-zero world. For a number of areas, which are ripe for materials innovation, government and agencies associated with the national security agenda are world leading.  Ultimately, we want to work on cutting-edge innovation that has the largest positive impact.

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Find out more: https://www.materialsnexus.com

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About MD One Ventures:

Founded in 2021 as Europe's first National Security specialist VC, MD One Ventures is a Venture Capital firm, investing in Pre- Seed to Series A National Security technology companies.

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