ENWISE / COMPANY JOURNEY & MARKET EXPANSION

The long play: helping Enwise open a new market

How years of partnership—and a climate innovation challenge—helped Enwise bring its waste-to-energy technology to Indonesia.

Enwise and partners at an Indonesian palm oil mill — Enwise and partners exploring the opportunity to turn palm oil mill waste into renewable energy in Indonesia.

Editor’s Note

How years of partnership—and a climate innovation challenge—helped Enwise bring its waste-to-energy technology to Indonesia.

Years of belief, followed by a new opening

A promising technology becomes a business through the people who develop it, the customers willing to try it and the partners who help it reach the next market. Enwise’s journey brings all three together.

For CM Venture Capital, that journey began well before an investment. Patrick Berbon met co-founder Stéphane Vernède through an alumni connection in France, then reconnected with him and co-founder Zhuoya Li in China in 2013. Over the following years, Patrick stayed close to their progress, including a visit to the Haimen pilot plant in 2016. CMVC invested in 2018.

As Patrick described in his original account, Enwise’s founders had already made an important decision: moving away from a costly centralized model toward compact systems that treat organic waste where it is produced. That change brought their technology closer to a customer’s daily operations, turning waste into a source of useful energy.

Connecting the technology with an opportunity

In 2024, CMVC’s relationship with Temasek Foundation opened another door. CMVC became an outreach partner for the Climate Impact Innovations Challenge (CIIC), jointly organised by East Ventures and Temasek Foundation, and helped connect Enwise with the opportunity to participate.

The challenge offered a relevant setting for Enwise’s capabilities: practical climate solutions that could be piloted in Indonesia. Enwise entered and earned a place among nine finalists selected from more than 500 applications spanning 50 countries.

CM Venture Capital meeting with partners at Temasek — Building relationships that connect portfolio companies with opportunities across Southeast Asia.

A prize that opened a partnership

At the grand finale on 6 September 2024, Sinar Mas Agribusiness & Food awarded Enwise a US$50,000 cash prize. It was recognition from a potential industrial partner with a substantial need for the technology: converting palm oil mill waste into renewable energy.

Enwise described how the funding would help adapt its technology to palm oil mill waste and support work with Sinar Mas on implementation. The award became a starting point for a pilot collaboration, bringing Enwise’s engineering expertise into a new industrial application and a new geography.

Enwise receiving the US$50,000 Sinar Mas prize at CIIC 2024 — Enwise received the Sinar Mas Agribusiness & Food cash prize at CIIC 2024.

Connection

CMVC’s outreach partnership helps connect Enwise with CIIC 2024.

Recognition

A finalist place and the US$50,000 Sinar Mas prize.

Collaboration

A pilot focused on renewable energy from palm oil mill waste.

Taking the work to the mill

The next stage took the relationship beyond the competition. Enwise and its partners visited Indonesian facilities and worked on the practical requirements of treating palm oil mill waste. The task was to demonstrate how the technology could fit existing operations and create a pathway toward broader deployment.

Enwise and partners visiting an Indonesian palm oil mill in November 2024 — A November 2024 mill visit: working through the industrial application on site.

The opportunity is compelling. Agricultural processing creates organic waste at scale; Enwise’s technology offers a way to recover energy from that material. Success in this setting could give industrial customers a useful renewable fuel while opening a significant new market for the company.

The role of an engaged investor

CMVC’s contribution extended across the journey: understanding the science, maintaining a relationship with the founders, investing as the technology and market developed, and helping Enwise access an international platform that led to industrial engagement.

The achievements belong to the Enwise team and its partners. CMVC’s role was to help create the conditions in which their work could reach the right audience—and to remain involved as a new connection developed into a commercial opportunity.

That continuity is the long play Patrick wrote about. Years of technical progress and relationship building can meet a decisive opening: a new customer, a relevant challenge, a partner willing to try a different approach. For Enwise, CIIC and Sinar Mas became an important next chapter.

Patrick’s account of the early journey

Patrick’s original essay explores the founding idea, the years before CMVC’s investment and the importance of timing in hard tech. It provides the earlier chapter of the relationship that underpins this story.

Read “How the Long Play Works in Venture Capital” ↗

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