Now heading up Wlanholding GmbH, a new advisory and investment company, founder and CEO Dr. Werner Lanthaler is committed to supporting visionary entrepreneurs, clearly focusing on the next generation of innovators. He also acts as advisor to a number of venture capital and private equity funds, serves on the Boards of Cerabyte GmbH, Soravia AG and AC Immune AG, and has recently been appointed chairman of the supervisory board of Proxygen, an Austrian bio-tech company.
In terms of his current areas of interest, Lanthaler remains fully focused on helping to develop projects in the high-tech, life science and sustainability sectors. A recent opportunity to step back from direct frontline responsibility has given him time to reflect.
Werner Lanthaler recognizes the potential of an “exciting new generation of entrepreneurs who have yet to achieve visible success”. That’s why he actively seeks to support potential new partner companies where there is visionary leadership and an ambitious, creative culture that prioritizes curiosity and the willingness to experiment. Lanthaler therefore takes a close interest in potential partner enterprises, focusing on teams that embody foresight, resilience and a strong ethical commitment.
Drawing from his expertise at Evotec, Werner Lanthaler highlights the importance of building a company that is truly focused on innovation – an enterprise determined to become a frontrunner, rather than one merely content to acquire a reputation as a conventional service business. Not that this company profile can be achieved without a certain element of risk. For instance, Lanthaler observes that a service business itself constantly faces price pressures. So those innovators dedicated to pushing the boundaries in their sector – by integrating OMICS technologies or biologics, for example – must therefore be prepared to make some early and costly strategic decisions if they are to generate profitable sales downstream. This inevitably leads to some challenging debates within teams, as well as with boards and shareholders. However, Lanthaler strongly believes in championing and empowering companies and entrepreneurs clearly and wholeheartedly committed to the long-term impact of their innovation.
As an investor and facilitator with sound financial credentials and a proven track record, Werner Lanthaler is already well-placed to empower promising newcomers and startups. However, his vision and ability to recognize candidates with innovative strength and genuine potential for sustainable growth is Lanthaler’s essential point of difference. A glance at some of Wlanholding’s recent company investments will illustrate how Lanthaler’s strategy operates in practice.
Solgate, originally founded as a collaborative spin-off involving two prestigious academic institutions – Austria’s CeMM (Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences) and IST Austria (Institute of Science and Technology Austria) – is working to accelerate the development of drugs that target so-called solute carriers. Largely ignored by previous research, these carriers act as molecular gates engaged in the membranous transport of proteins. Drugs that can effectively modulate the action of solute carrier proteins (SlCs) have shown promising potential to create innovative treatments to combat challenging diseases such as neurological conditions, autoimmune- and metabolic disorders. Solgate’s interdisciplinary team draws upon scientific expertise from the knowledge fields of chemistry, cell biology and advanced analytics in pursuit of novel and previously unexploited solutions to create “therapeutic modalities [designed] to bring the right drug candidate to the right patient”.
This blend of a powerful academic team deploying cutting-edge technologies to develop a new drug discovery pipeline destined to advance medical science in areas where breakthrough treatments are extremely rare is a prime example of a company with a unique, transformative idea. Furthermore, Solgate’s advances focus upon previously unexplored territory, which offers concrete potential for sustainable growth. These two factors are optimally aligned with Lanthaler’s own guiding principles.
Turning to a contrasting sector, Cyment is an innovative company sourcing and processing environment-friendly raw materials and additives to develop and produce green concrete material with broad applications in the construction industry and beyond. 40% of carbon emissions are derived from the cement manufacturing process itself, and another 60% of emissions are caused by the subsequent chemical breakdown of limestone’s calcium carbonate (which releases carbon dioxide). Because of this, meeting today’s stringent carbon neutral expectations as regards to the usage of cement products remains a daunting challenge for all cement and concrete producers. The company is pioneering ‘cyment’ as a cement additive which reduces the amount of cement required in any traditional concrete mixture, while simultaneously controlling and optimizing the blend of raw materials required in its cyment concrete-manufacturing process. In combination, this innovation serves to conserve resources and reduce clinker content while also substantially reducing end-product carbon emissions by as much as 50%. One particular advantage of the cyment production system is its use of state-of-the-art machine technology. This sophisticated control element allows the company to produce concrete products with a high degree of variability, thus enabling cyment to be manufactured to a range of different specifications – as required for example in structural engineering and civil engineering, as well as meeting the demands for road construction and building projects.
Firmly set on a climate-friendly journey, Cyment embraces sustainability as a core driver and continues to research eco-friendly concrete raw materials and new binder systems whilst making a substantial and growing contribution to the recycling economy. Few businesses could boast such an enduring commitment to a green future for our planet.
Werner Lanthaler acknowledges that commercial success rarely happens overnight, as he recently stated: “You can’t just jump in and expect to reap the rewards tomorrow!” That’s why, even though headline-grabbing transformative technologies can sometimes capture the imagination and rapidly inspire and convert stakeholders and markets, building resilient partnerships is equally important for long-term success. Lanthaler’s instinct is to value strategic partnerships which promote synergies between organizations grounded in a shared understanding of the drivers for each of the stakeholders. This responsive approach establishes mutual trust by respecting and valuing different kinds of expertise, thus allowing all to derive benefit from the differences between specialist partners and the shared availability of their assets.
The same applies to internal company relationships where, in order to foster an innovative culture that rewards initiative and encourages experimentation, Lanthaler believes that teams should be as diverse as possible and have a broad range of creative tools at their disposal. This tends to produce flexible teams that are more open to trial and error and better able to deal with both challenge and compromise.
Perhaps most importantly, Werner Lanthaler wants to support innovators with a genuine ambition and determination to reach the top. In his view, being “all in” from the outset makes a decisive difference in creating and developing a healthy, resilient and adaptable company primed for sustainable growth.
