HG Ventures’ Ginger Rothrock has been included in the 2026 ‘Powerlist’ compiled by Global Corporate Venturing (GCV), which recognizes the 100 most influential leaders in the global corporate venture capital ecosystem.
The Powerlist is a highly regarded accolade for individuals in corporate investing, with selection based on a combination of quantitative and qualitative criteria, including investment activity, exits, team composition, unit approach, and community involvement.
Rothrock’s inclusion comes shortly after her promotion to Managing Director, alongside John Glushik, who himself appeared on the Powerlist for the past two years.
John Glushik said: “Ginger brings passion, integrity, technical depth, and a builder’s instinct to everything she does. Founders and our team value her judgment, and the market has recognized her expertise in our core sectors. She is an enormous asset to this team and to our portfolio.”
Rothrock joined HG Ventures nearly eight years ago, bringing a background that spans academic research, startup co-founding and management, and senior commercialization leadership. She currently serves on the boards of Pretred, Avenew, ElectraMet, Aclarity, and FREDsense, and is a board observer at ZwitterCo.
“Honestly, the work I’m proudest of doesn’t make any list. It’s the value we bring founders that other investors can’t.” said Rothrock. “This honor belongs to a whole team that delivers that every day, and to the vision The Heritage Group invested in building. I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished together so far, and excited about what’s ahead.”
Rothrock was previously included in GCV’s list of corporate VC’s top 50 Emerging Leaders list, in 2024 and 2025. Read more about Ginger Rothrock’s inclusion in the GCV Powerlist 2026 here.
Reflections from the inaugural Industrial Water Forum.
For decades, industrial water has periodically been framed as ’the next big thing.’ Each cycle brought conviction, but rarely the structural conditions required for sustained adoption.
This time, the underlying conditions appear materially different.
Across capital flows, operating practice, regulation, and workforce, the signals we have been tracking have started to look less like another wave of enthusiasm and more like a real turning point. That is why we decided the moment was right to convene the Industrial Water Forum, which we co-hosted with Xylem at our headquarters in Indianapolis on April 30. More than 120 senior operators, founders, investors, and water experts spent the day with us, and the conversation confirmed many of the signals we have been tracking across the market.
The clearest articulation of that difference came from Antoine Walter, host of the (Don’t) Waste Water podcast, who opened the day. Antoine sketched three eras of water management: a long century of “the solution to pollution is dilution;” a century of vast centralized infrastructure; and now, an era of ‘marginal gains’.
Antoine Walter of the (Don’t) Waste Water podcast set the themes for the Industrial Water Forum
The argument that mattered most, though, was Antoine’s observation that five long-running pressures in industrial water are accelerating simultaneously: physical infrastructure; the economics of water inside operating businesses; the workforce that runs all of it; the boundaries between sectors; and the regulatory environment. Together, they signal a structural change in the market.
Those same pressures surfaced repeatedly throughout the day, across operators, investors, utilities, and technical companies. Here are our key take-aways.
Infrastructure and economics finally rhyme
The infrastructure deficit is no longer abstract. Antoine Walter’s estimate of the true global water infrastructure gap — north of $48 trillion, roughly half the world’s annual GDP — puts the official $14 trillion figure in proper perspective. The official number is what utilities plan to spend; the bigger number is what is actually needed.
Aging systems, extreme weather, and rising community resistance to large new water users, with data centers emerging as a focal point, are creating a problem that no longer permits deferral.
Tom Ferguson of Burnt Island Ventures reframed water as a “defensive, foundational, high-growth asset class.”
What is new is that capital is starting to meet that reality on its own terms. Tom Ferguson of Burnt Island Ventures reframed water for the room as a “defensive, foundational, high-growth asset class”, not the charity-case investment category it was treated as a decade ago. The data behind this reframing was striking: water pricing rising at four times the rate of GDP in 2023–24; $8 billion in liquidity events in 2025 against a projected $3 billion; private equity activity up 3.5x year over year; exits up 7x since 2020. Series B through E rounds now exist in water tech where they barely did in 2019. The deficit and the capital are starting to rhyme.
The clearest takeaway from the morning corporate operator panel, moderated by Kristen Siemen, sustainability advisor to The Heritage Group and former Chief Sustainability Officer at General Motors, was that water continues to be materially undervalued on corporate balance sheets.
Kristen Siemen chaired a panel discussion among major corporate operators, including 3M, Conagra, Colgate-Palmolive and PepsiCo.
Cheap on the bill of materials but business-critical, water rarely justifies investment on cost-savings arguments alone. The shift happens when water moves from an efficiency discussion to a risk discussion: supply chain resilience, license-to-operate, operational continuity, and regulatory exposure. That conversation moves capital in ways that efficiency arguments alone never have.
The talent transition is real, and underestimated
If economics is the loudest of the five forces, workforce may be the most underappreciated. The “silver tsunami” came up across multiple sessions: an estimated 50% of utility institutional knowledge could retire in the next five years. The risk is not simply labor shortage. It is the potential loss of decades of operating knowledge that has quietly kept aging infrastructure functioning. That is happening exactly as the sector is being asked to digitize, modernize, and absorb new contaminant rules.
The generational transition also creates opportunity. Younger workers bring the digital fluency the sector increasingly needs, while experienced operators carry decades of institutional knowledge that cannot be easily replaced. But the prerequisite is sobering: 90% of utilities still manage primary data on paper, and even sophisticated industrial operators lack line-level water metering across many of their facilities. Before AI optimizes anything, basic digitization has to happen. That is the current ceiling on optimization, not algorithm sophistication. It is also one of the more investable gaps surfaced across the day.
Sector boundaries are dissolving
Industrial water has historically been compartmentalized, with food, beverage, pharma, semiconductors, power, and utilities each running their own play. What we heard in the afternoon, included in the resource-recovery panel moderated by Walt Kozlowski of Xylem, suggests that one of the clearest market shifts is the erosion of traditional sector boundaries.
Walt Kozlowski of Xylem moderated a discussion about resource recovery and closed loop systems, featuring representatives of Nestlé and HG Ventures portfolio companies ElectraMet and ZwitterCo.
Point-source treatment is moving upstream across sectors. Treating contamination closer to its source reduces variability, regulatory risk, and long-term cost. Waste-to-value economics are reinforcing the same trajectory: copper recovery from semiconductor wastewater, protein recovery from food processing streams, sulfuric acid recovery from fab effluents. In more settings, waste streams are being reconsidered as recoverable production assets rather than disposal liabilities.
Corporate adoption is following multiple pathways at once — accelerators, venture arms, plant-level pilots, and product portfolio integration — and the dominant constraint is no longer technical. As more than one panelist put it, behavior change is harder than technology. Internal champions, procurement education, and institutional inertia are the stubbornest obstacles in this market, not capability.
Regulation as catalyst, not constraint
PFAS dominated the regulatory conversation, though not in the way we expected. The patchwork of federal, state, and local timelines is creating real uncertainty. But that uncertainty, paradoxically, is driving rather than delaying investment. Companies are increasingly unwilling to wait for regulatory certainty that may never arrive.
A consistent theme from the resilient infrastructure panel, moderated by Daniel Benitez of Veralto, was the need to build flexible systems that can adapt to unknown future regulations rather than optimize narrowly for today’s rules. As standards continue to shift, operators are prioritizing modular infrastructure, point-source treatment, and deployment models that preserve optionality instead of locking facilities into rigid long-term designs.
Regulation in this category will keep moving; the strategic question is whether an organization’s operating model can move with it.
Why all five at once changes the calculus
None of the forces Antoine highlighted are entirely new. Industrial operators have been managing water risk, aging infrastructure, workforce constraints, and regulatory pressure for years. What feels different now is that these forces are no longer evolving separately. Capital is accelerating into the market at the same moment workforce turnover is forcing digitization, sector boundaries are blurring around point-source treatment and resource recovery, and regulatory uncertainty is pushing operators toward modular, outcome-based deployment models.
Together, these shifts are changing how industrial operators think about water: less as a utility cost, and more as strategic infrastructure.
We are not declaring industrial water solved. The data infrastructure gap is real; the shared measurement framework that water still lacks — the GHG Protocol equivalent that came up repeatedly — is a meaningful constraint on corporate adoption; plant-level execution remains hard, and behavior change is slower than any technology curve. None of that should be glossed over.
But the room in Indianapolis offered the strongest evidence we have seen that this cycle is structurally different. The Series B–E rounds, the dedicated water funds, the corporate venture arms, the deployed installations, and above all the candor of operators willing to say what isn’t working, all point in the same direction. For years, industrial water remained a market defined by pilots, fragmented adoption, and difficult commercialization. The signals now look different: larger growth rounds, dedicated infrastructure capital, repeat corporate buyers, and operators increasingly willing to deploy rather than experiment.
The inflection point is the simultaneous restructuring of capital, infrastructure, regulation, workforce, and operating behavior around water as a strategic industrial system.
With thanks
Our thanks to Xylem for co-hosting, to our speakers and panelists, and to everyone who joined us in Indianapolis. The willingness of operators, founders, investors, and industry leaders to share openly across sectors was one of the strongest signals of all.
Erin Crowther has been named to Global Corporate Venturing’s Rising Stars list, which recognizes the next generation of leaders in corporate venture capital.
Since joining HG Ventures, Erin has contributed across research, due diligence, and portfolio engagement, and has taken on a board observer role with FREDsense and PinPoint Analytics. In that capacity, she is gaining direct experience in how HG Ventures works alongside its portfolio companies to support growth.
This recognition by GCV reflects both Erin’s contributions to date and her trajectory as an investor.
Managing Director, Ginger Rothrock says: “Erin represents the very best of the next generation of venture investors – a killer work ethic, insatiably curious, and already delivering impact well beyond her years. This makes her not only a rising star, but a foundational part of what makes our team successful.”
John Glushik recently sat down with Tim Boeltken, CEO and co-founder of synthetic fuels pioneer, INERATEC, to discuss the role of e-fuels in the energy transition, the realities of scaling chemical infrastructure, and what it takes to build a company designed for the long term. This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
John Glushik (JG): Tim, we invested in INERATEC in 2024, because we could see the enormous potential of sustainable aviation fuels and other e-fuels. But for those unfamiliar with this sector, perhaps you can help them level-set. Where do e-fuels sit in the broader energy transition, and why do they matter right now?
Tim Boeltken (TB): Many people think of the energy transition as electrification. But the real challenge isn’t just electrifying what we can, it’s removing fossil carbon from the system altogether. That’s what we mean by ‘defossilization’. The world is built out of molecules, and we cannot electrify everything. We will continue to electrify a lot of things, but there are hard-to-abate sectors that simply cannot be electrified directly.
That’s where e-fuels and synthetic fuels come in. Aviation is the most obvious example, but we’re also looking at shipping, road transportation, and the chemical industry.
What drives us every day is the idea that every gallon, every ton of fuel we produce is a ton where fossil fuel stays in the ground.
JG: That’s a huge issue you’re tackling. Take us back to the early days; how did INERATEC come together, and what problem were you trying to solve when you started the company?
TB: INERATEC was founded in 2016 as a spin-out from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, one of Europe’s leading universities in chemical engineering. Our core technology—compact, microstructured reactors—had been developed for more than two decades before we started the company.
During our PhDs, our funding partners basically told us: ‘You can’t keep doing R&D forever. You need to bring this technology into industry.’ So we did.
What surprised us was how quickly the market responded. Within the first year, we sold our first plant to a customer in Finland. We didn’t even really know how to send an invoice yet!
From day one, we weren’t focused on telling the best story to investors. We were focused on where the market was, how we could bring the technology into real use, and how to get customer proof points early.
JG: One thing that stood out to us early on was your modular approach. Please describe why that is so important?
TB: If you look at renewables over the last 30 years, everything is modular: solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, electrolyzers. But chemical plants still look like they did 100 years ago.
We use well-known chemical reactions, but we rethink how they’re processed. By intensifying those reactions in compact, modular systems, we can build much faster and scale incrementally.
It’s not about what could be possible with 20 billion euros in ten years. It’s about what we can build now, how we can improve now, and how we can put steel in the ground.
JG: Yes, and speaking of ‘steel in the ground’, let’s talk about the ERA ONE plant. What does it represent for INERATEC, and for the industry?
TB: ERA ONE is our first commercial-scale production plant, and it’s a major milestone. From development to operation, it took a little over two years. In the chemical industry, that’s extremely fast.
We started operating the first modules in June 2025 and delivered our first product shortly after. That’s the proof point. People want to see plants running, not slides.
We built ERA ONE to demonstrate and de-risk the technology. Even though we were confident in our modular approach, this is still a conservative industry. Seeing a plant operate over time matters.
Now that box is checked. The future is about scaling into as many projects as possible, either as a producer, a core investor, or an OEM supplying our technology globally.
JG: You chose not to rely on a single EPC (engineering, procurement, and construction contractor) to build ERA ONE. What did you learn from that decision?
TB: A lot!
We decided against using one major EPC because our technology is very innovative, and we didn’t want to spend time educating someone else on the full scope of what we were doing.
That made execution more complex. Contract management and site management were difficult, and we had to build internal capabilities we didn’t have before.
But the upside is huge. Today, we don’t just bring technology, we bring execution experience. That’s becoming a real differentiator as partners approach us for larger projects.
JG: What advice would you give to other founders building hardware-heavy, infrastructure-intensive companies?
TB: One big topic is insourcing versus outsourcing. Outsourcing can save cost, but you often lose control over quality.
We insourced critical steps like electrical engineering and reactor manufacturing. Whenever we faced delays in Frankfurt, it was almost always related to third-party contractors.
If ERA ONE had failed on quality, that would have been unacceptable. Keeping key capabilities in-house gave us confidence and control.
And you have to be prepared for uncertainty. While you’re executing, people will question your decisions constantly. That’s why having patient, aligned investors matters so much.
JG: That brings us to partnerships. What do you look for in investors and board members?
TB: Strategic alignment and an understanding of the system, not just the market. Different perspectives are important, but you need people who understand how these industries actually work.
With HG Ventures, the relationship is trustful and respectful. Discussions can be tough, but that’s a good thing, a sign of a strong partnership. You learn from them.
Governance was also a learning curve for us, especially coming from a German GmbH structure. But once we embraced board-level strategic discussions, it became a strength. You get clarity, alignment, and shared responsibility.
JG: Looking ahead, where do you see INERATEC in five to ten years?
TB: We want to be the leading producer of e-fuels and synthetic fuels globally, in a much larger market than today.
Climate change isn’t going away, but we also see strong demand driven by energy resilience and security, especially in Europe. Interest is growing not just from airlines and chemical companies, but also from defense and infrastructure players.
We don’t just have one shot on goal—we have several. With every plant we build, we strengthen our position.
The next project will be significantly larger than ERA ONE. It will require more capital, a larger team, and strong partnerships. But we’re hungry to do it again—bigger this time.
StreetIQ, an AI-powered infrastructure intelligence company, publicly launched today following two years of product development and early customer validation. The company’s AI technology empowers cities and counties to replace manual, subjective infrastructure assessments with a defensible, automated system of intelligence for planning, compliance, and budgetary decision-making.
StreetIQ applies computer vision and machine learning to score street-level imagery, enabling public agencies to objectively assess roadway conditions, standardize reporting, and clearly communicate progress to stakeholders. The platform is designed to support the full lifecycle of infrastructure decision-making, from data collection and analysis through to planning, treatment recommendations, budget optimization, and council-ready reporting.
“For too long, infrastructure teams have been stuck in a cycle of scrambling — collecting data by hand, stitching together spreadsheets, and trying to justify decisions under intense time and budgetary pressure,” said Joe Becker, Chief Executive Officer of StreetIQ. “StreetIQ exists to simplify that entire journey. We help agencies move from reactive maintenance to proactive planning, with data they can stand behind and decisions they can defend.”
Becker was recently appointed to lead StreetIQ, and brings hands-on experience of working with public agencies, infrastructure operators and scaling enterprise software companies. Under Becker’s leadership, StreetIQ is prioritizing automation, standardization, and ease of use, to help customers reclaim time, plan further ahead, and make smarter use of constrained budgets.
The technology behind StreetIQ has been built over the past 18-months by Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder Brian Howenstein, who has led development of the company’s core platform while operating in stealth.
“Our focus from day one has been accuracy, repeatability, and defensibility,” said Howenstein. “Infrastructure decisions carry real financial and political consequences, so the data has to be trustworthy. By combining modern camera technology with AI-driven analysis, we’ve built a system that produces consistent results across jurisdictions and over time, something legacy, manual approaches simply can’t do.”
StreetIQ’s platform replaces subjective windshield surveys and fragmented reporting workflows with a standardized, auditable process. Agencies can track asset conditions over time, test funding and maintenance scenarios, and align spending decisions with long-term performance goals, all while meeting state and federal compliance requirements.
The company is backed by HG Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of The Heritage Group. HG Ventures invests in technologies that modernize critical infrastructure and improve operational decision-making. This partnership reflects the strategic value The Heritage Group’s operating companies and deep technical expertise help high-growth businesses solve real-world construction and operations challenges.
“StreetIQ is addressing a persistent challenge we see across infrastructure systems: important decisions being made with incomplete, inconsistent, or hard-to-defend data,” said Mitch Black, Venture Partner, HG Ventures. “The combination of a technically rigorous platform and a leadership team that deeply understands public-sector realities positions StreetIQ to deliver real, measurable impact for infrastructure owners.”
With its public launch, StreetIQ’s focus turns to growing its customer base across cities, counties and regional engineering firms. StreetIQ is empowering budget compliant defensible decisions that turn real world complexity into clear, actionable intelligence while improving safety and access for the traveling public.
R3 Robotics (formerly Circu Li-ion) today announced €20 million in combined financing to industrialize automated disassembly of electric vehicle systems at scale. The company has raised €14 million in Series A funding, co-led by HG Ventures and Suma Capital, with participation from Oetker Collection, the European Innovation Council Fund (EIC Fund), and existing shareholders including BONVENTURE, FlixFounders, and EIT Urban Mobility, alongside €6 million in European grants.
The funding coincides with the company’s rebranding from Circu Li-ion to R3 Robotics and a clear expansion of scope: from battery disassembly to automated dismantling of complete electric vehicle systems, including e-drives, power electronics, and other high-value components. The long-term ambition is to enable fully automated disassembly across entire vehicle systems. The new name reflects the company’s industrial focus – Repair, Reuse, Recycle – powered by robotics.
Industrial Disassembly at Scale
As electrification accelerates across mobility and energy systems, end-of-life volumes of complex electrified components are expected to increase sharply. Manual disassembly remains labor-intensive, costly, and difficult to scale safely. R3 Robotics addresses this challenge with a dismantling platform designed for repeatable, high-throughput operation in continuous industrial environments.
European policy reinforces this shift. The Critical Raw Materials Act underscores the need to strengthen secure and resilient domestic supply chains for strategic materials. In parallel, the EU Battery Regulation introduces progressively stricter recycling efficiency targets, including a 70% target for lithium-based batteries by 2030, alongside material recovery and recycled content requirements. Together with the End-of-Life Vehicles Directive, these frameworks are reshaping industrial recycling infrastructure.
“The bottleneck isn’t recycling technology; it’s clean feedstock, meaning getting complex electrified systems safely and cost-effectively dismantled at an industrial scale,” said Antoine Welter, CEO and co founder of R3 Robotics. “We’re building a dismantling platform that turns end-of-life systems into a strategic source of critical materials and reusable components for advanced industrial economies.”
R3 Robotics Technology
R3 Robotics’ dismantling platform combines computer vision, AI, and specialized robotic tooling to automate the disassembly of lithium-ion battery packs, e-motors, power electronics, and other high value electrified components. The system minimizes human exposure to high-voltage hazards and delivers the cost structure and reliability required for industrial-scale operations.
The company is working with Fortum Battery Recycling, a major integrated battery recycler active across multiple stages of the European battery recycling value chain, from collection and pre-treatment to material refining, to deploy its automated dismantling technology at industrial scale. Beyond its work with recycling partners, R3 Robotics works directly with automotive OEM customers, processing end-of-life battery systems through its centralized dismantling infrastructure to recover critical raw materials and support secure sourcing.
“R3 Robotics is addressing a critical industrial bottleneck in the supply of strategic raw materials,” said HG Ventures’ John Glushik. “Scalable dismantling infrastructure is essential to strengthen resilience and secure access to critical inputs.”
Lighthouse Facility and Strategic Markets
The announcement marks the expansion of R3’s lighthouse disassembly facility in Karlsruhe, Germany, designed to demonstrate industrial-scale performance and serve as a reference site. R3 Robotics views Germany and France as key European markets, given their strong automotive and industrial ecosystems, electrification momentum, and concentration of recycling and remanufacturing partners.
“R3 Robotics combines strong industrial execution with a scalable approach to dismantling complex electrified systems,” said Natalia Ruiz, Partner at Suma Capital. “This capability is critical to unlocking materials and components at scale.”
Deployment and Growth Strategy
The Series A financing and additional European grants will support:
● Technology and team expansion: Strategic hiring across engineering, AI, software, andoperations
● European market scale-up: System deployments with industrial recyclers and automotive partners
● Facility scale-up: Increased capacity in Karlsruhe and Luxembourg
● U.S. market entry: Commercial preparations and strategic partnerships for roll-out in 2026
To further strengthen its strategic development, R3 Robotics has added Peter Mohnen, former CEO of KUKA, to its advisory board.
“Automated disassembly at this level of complexity represents one of the toughest challenges in industrial robotics: managing variability, safety, and throughput simultaneously,” said Peter Mohnen, former CEO of KUKA and board member of R3 Robotics. “R3’s approach demonstrates the depth of automation expertise required to make this work at scale.”
HG Ventures today announced that Ginger Rothrock has been named Managing Director. The appointment reflects Rothrock’s leadership role in building the HG Ventures platform and supporting its expanding portfolio of investments.
Since joining HG Ventures, Rothrock has played a central role in strengthening the group’s investment strategy, cultivating long-term relationships with founders, and supporting companies developing innovative solutions across advanced materials, sustainability, infrastructure, environmental services, and industrial systems.
“Ginger has been a driving force behind how HG Ventures shows up for founders and the broader entrepreneurial community,” said John Glushik, EVP, New Ventures and Managing Director of HG Ventures. “She brings sound strategic judgment, a focus on relationships and a founder-first mindset to everything she does. This appointment recognizes both the impact she’s already made and the leadership she will continue to provide as we scale.”
In her role as Managing Director, Rothrock will continue to lead founder engagement, investment strategy, and portfolio support efforts.
FREDsense, a pioneer in rapid water testing technology, has announced the close of its USD $7 million Series A funding round led by HG Ventures, with participation from Emerald Technology Ventures. FREDsense delivers practical, next-generation solutions for detecting PFAS —“forever chemicals”— by providing fast, portable testing equipment that allows customers to get results in hours rather than weeks.
The company has launched the first commercially available field-based PFAS detector and has seen early adoption across industries such as environmental consulting & services, water and wastewater treatment, energy and general industrial operations. By replacing lengthy lab turnaround times with same-day answers onsite, FREDsense enables onsite teams to identify contamination hotspots, verify cleanups, and optimize treatment more efficiently and at lower cost.
“Our mission is simple: make PFAS testing fast, accessible, and actionable,” said David Lloyd, CEO of FREDsense. “With support from HG Ventures and Emerald, we’ll expand production, deepen customer support, and continue improving our product so more sites can get answers on the spot.”
“Communities and companies need cleaner water, faster answers, and fewer delays,” said Ginger Rothrock, Senior Director at HG Ventures. “FREDsense puts lab-level insight into the hands of field teams, which is exactly what this moment requires. We’re proud to lead the round and support FREDsense as they scale.”
“FREDsense is bringing much-needed speed and practicality to PFAS testing,” said Clayton MacDougald, Investment Director at Emerald and newly appointed FREDsense Board Member. “When you can get reliable results the same day, you make better decisions, finish jobs faster, and reduce costs. We’re thrilled to back this team alongside HG Ventures.”
Looking Ahead
FREDsense is building toward long-term relevance in a market of extreme importance, where PFAS sits at the intersection of environmental urgency, human health concerns, regulatory enforcement and economic opportunity within a global multi-billion-dollar problem. With its first-mover advantage, growing commercial traction, and scalable business model, FREDsense represents a compelling opportunity for players in the PFAS space that are seeking differentiated tools to strengthen their portfolios and respond to regulatory and customer demand.
About FREDsense
FREDsense Technologies Corp. is a leading provider of innovative water quality testing solutions, offering field-deployable sensors that deliver fast, accurate, and reliable results. Its flagship product, FRED-PFAS™, revolutionizes the detection of PFAS and other contaminants, helping clients accelerate remediation projects and ensure regulatory compliance. For more information visit www.fredsense.com.
John Glushik has been named to the 2025 Global Corporate Venturing (GCV) Powerlist. The list celebrates individuals making the most significant impact in the global corporate venture capital ecosystem and this marks the second year in a row that John has been recognized among the top 100 CVC leaders worldwide.
John’s continued inclusion on the Powerlist reflects not only his leadership at HG Ventures but also the strength and values of the team behind him.
“This recognition is really a testament to the entire HG Ventures team,” said John. “It’s their talent, dedication, and partnership with founders that drive our success.”
The HG Ventures team is further represented in GCV’s 2025 Emerging Leaders list, which highlights rising stars shaping the future of corporate venturing. This year, both Ginger Rothrock and Jon Schalliol earned spots on the prestigious list. Their inclusion underscores HG Ventures’ depth of talent and commitment to developing the next generation of industry leaders.
HG Ventures has appointed Sarah Schlifke to the position of Platform Manager, in which role she will serve as a strategic connector and builder across HG Ventures’ portfolio, The Heritage Group operating companies, and the startup ecosystem by driving collaboration, supporting pilots, and enabling growth for early-stage companies.
Sarah brings more than 15 years of experience leading cross-functional teams, product innovation, and strategic operations across both high-growth and established organizations. Most recently, she led wholesale strategy for Renovation Brands, supporting multiple national retailers and marketplaces. Prior to that, she held several leadership roles at Delta Faucet Company, where she helped launch a Smart Home IoT platform, conducted M&A diligence, and shepherded several R&D product launches. Known for her ability to align teams, simplify complexity, and build systems that scale, Sarah is deeply passionate about helping companies turn bold visions into actionable roadmaps.
“It is unusual for an investment team of our size to have a Platform Manager, but we see it as an incredibly important position,” said HG Ventures’ Managing Director, John Glushik. “We want to add value throughout the life of our relationships with our portfolio companies, and the Platform Manager has a vital role to play in ensuring that happens, by identifying opportunities, creating connections and clearing the path to successful collaboration. Sarah’s wide-ranging experience makes her ideally suited for this.”
Voxel, the AI company revolutionizing workplace safety and risk, today announced it has raised $44 million in Series B funding led by NewRoad Capital Partners with participation from current investors Eclipse, Rite Hite, Tokio Marine, and MTech as well as HG Ventures and Whitestone. This round brings the company’s total funding of $61 million to date. Voxel will use the funding to accelerate R&D and deepen its AI capabilities—enhancing real-time computer vision models and expanding data insights. The company will also invest in growing its team of industry experts to ensure Voxel’s customers don’t just benefit from cutting-edge AI solutions, but also decades of applied experience in industrial environments.
Despite most companies having a heavy focus on improving safety, 2.78M workers lose their lives every year to work-related incidents globally—a stark reminder that traditional safety approaches fall short. Voxel helps organizations prevent accidents before they happen by identifying potential hazards and unsafe behaviors in real-time, enabling supervisors and safety managers to take immediate action. By integrating directly with existing security cameras to detect unsafe behaviors and operational inefficiencies autonomously, Voxel makes proactive prevention possible at scale.
“We’re developing AI to support the workers performing demanding jobs day in and day out—on warehouse floors, in factories, in ports–really any industrial environment,” said Vernon O’Donnell, CEO of Voxel. “Leaders don’t need more dashboards or things to do on a daily basis: They need tools that drive action, improve training, and keep teams protected in a way that is part of their daily workflow. Our deep commitment to understanding our customers; operations is why they see up to an 80% reduction in high-risk behaviors just months after deployment.”
Deployed by companies like Albertsons, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Americold, AGI, Port of Virginia, and Berry Global, Voxel is becoming the trusted partner for leading enterprises across logistics, retail, warehousing, and manufacturing. Beyond best-in-class AI, the intuitive product dashboard consolidates AI-generated insights, giving teams clear visibility into emerging risks. This allows safety, operations, and HR professionals to address issues before they result in injuries—fundamentally shifting workplace safety from reactive response to proactive prevention.
Voxel’s growth is supported by strong performance across key areas of the business:
Financial Performance: 147% year-over-year revenue growth with 202% net revenue retention;
Customer Impact: 91% reduction in recordable injuries, with one site saving over $2.2M in direct costs over a 2-year period; and
Market Adoption: Expansion across retail, logistics, and manufacturing sectors, with
five new Fortune 500 clients in Q1 2025.
David, a brand that designs tools to increase muscle and decrease fat, today closed a $75 million Series A funding round, and announced the acquisition of Epogee, the food technology firm behind EPG, a plant-based fat alternative that significantly reduces calories and fat without compromising taste or texture. HG Ventures was an investor in Epogee.
In September 2024, David launched and debuted its flagship product: a protein bar with 28 grams of protein, zero sugar, and just 150 calories—offering the highest protein-to-calorie ratio on the market. The brand has experienced explosive growth over its first eight months of commercial operations, expanding into over 3,000 retail locations across the United States, most recently entering Wegmans. The brand is on pace to surpass $100 million in revenue in its first year of operation.
“Our mission is simple: to remove unnecessary calories and sugar from the American diet and replace them with what the body actually needs, which is high-quality protein,” said Peter Rahal, Co-Founder and CEO. “We’re building tools that make it easier to eat well without compromise. The response to David has been overwhelming, and this funding allows us to scale faster and stay focused on our mission of providing solutions to support and improve people’s health and well-being.”
David will use the investment to scale manufacturing, accelerate product development, and expand inventory to meet surging demand across retail and e-commerce. The Epogee acquisition is part of this growth strategy.
“We are not here to make another snack. We are here to advance nutrition,” added Rahal. “Acquiring Epogee strengthens our ability to scale by securing a key ingredient that helps us reduce calories and fat without compromising taste. This is about gaining control over our supply chain to move faster, stay true to our mission, and deliver food that improves health.”
In August of 2024, David closed a $10 million seed funding round. Notable investors include Dr. Layne Norton, Ph.D., Dr. Andrew Huberman, Ph.D., and Dr. Peter Attia, M.D., who serves as the brand’s Chief Science Officer.
With the Epogee acquisition, HG Ventures will benefit from David’s success, as a shareholder.
