Sven Harmsen
About Sven Harmsen
Sven Harmsen leads Saint-Gobain NOVA North America. NOVA is the external venturing arm of Saint‑Gobain. In this role, Sven is responsible for driving NOVA’s growth strategy in alignment with overall corporate engagement and investments in startup companies. Sven came to Saint-Gobain NOVA from M Ventures, the global corporate venture capital unit of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, where he served as Investment Director. At M Ventures, he established and led a Performance Materials investment team focusing on building a portfolio of strategic investments. Prior to M Ventures, he worked as Investment Manager at BASF Venture Capital (BVC). For this position, Sven relocated to the Boston area in 2012 where he established BVC’s East Coast office, overseeing the investment process and identifying relevant investment targets. Prior to BVC, he served as Head of Global New Business Development for BASF’s agrochemical division. Sven joined BASF from a VC backed (now publicly traded) biotech company called 4SC, located near Munich, Germany. At 4SC, he was responsible for business development following a position overseeing the medicinal chemistry department. He also held positions in research and development at such companies as Hoechst Pharma/HMR (today: Sanofi), and AgrEvo/Aventis CropScience (today: Bayer). Sven served as Board Director for Advanced Bionutrition (ABN), Board Observer for Aspen Aerogels and Adaptive Surface Technologies (AST), and currently serves as Board Director for Maxterial, Inc. He has broad expertise in corporate venturing, new business development, disciplinary leadership, technology scouting, overseeing projects, and motivating international and diverse teams. Sven holds a Ph.D. in Natural Sciences, with a focus on Chemistry, from the Julius-Maximilians-University in Wuerzburg, Germany. He completed post-doctoral work at Stanford University. Fluent in English and German, he currently lives in the greater Boston area.