GENESIS
The firm's founder had the privilege of studying and observing the venture capital and private equity industry from the vantage point of the Center for Venture Capital and Private Equity Finance at the University of Michigan, under its Director, Dr. David J. Brophy.
The Center, colloquially called “the best seat in the house”, allows for an unparalleled historical and contemporary view of the alternative investment universe, and for the development of novel opinions and approaches, which have been the kernel for the development of CrystalPoint Partners.
THE FOUNDER
Wassim Mourtada is the Founder and Managing Director of CrystalPoint Partners (“CP”), an investment firm focused on alternative, special situations and esoteric investments in Science & Technology, Private Equity, Real Assets, and Financial Assets.
He is Chairman of the Pakistan Energy and Resources Company Ltd. (“PERC”). PERC is actively engaged in developing a concession in the Thar Coalfields of Sindh, Pakistan, for mining and power generation.
He is also the founder and Chairman of Envision ALR, an operating company specializing in the commercialization of research laboratory-developed intellectual property in the fields of Industrial Biotechnology, Regenerative Medicine, and Nanotechnology / Material Sciences. Envision has executed several investments, collaborations, and technology transfer licenses in these areas, and is actively involved in the continued development of the technologies.
Mr. Mourtada was invited to partner with a prominent GCC-based Sovereign Wealth Fund, and in that capacity, he led the development of a US$6 Billion initiative in the Life Sciences. This included the development of government policy, economic development frameworks, and a comprehensive investment strategy for creating an economically and technically viable cluster.
He also assisted one of the leading Silicon Valley venture capital firms in raising US$100 million from one of the GCC Sovereign Wealth Funds. This fundraising was started at the peak of the 2008 Financial Crisis and was successfully completed despite a moratorium on new investments by the fund. He was formerly Associate Director of the University of Michigan’s Center for Venture Capital and Private Equity Finance, a not-for-profit think tank and research group serving venture capital & private equity firms, institutional investors, corporations, governments, managers, and entrepreneurs. As part of the Center’s flagship program, the Growth Capital Symposium, he led the sourcing of investment opportunities that have gone on to raise over $400 million in private and public financing, and have generated over $2 billion in acquisition value. Mr. Mourtada's primary research focus at the Center was: • Issues faced in the commercialization of research-institution originated with intellectual property • The evolving structure of the global venture capital and private equity industry • Economic Development through venture capital and technology commercialization His research on these three issues forms the foundation of his commercial activity today and the basis of CrystalPoint Partners. Some of his research has been published by the Federal Reserve Bank, the Government of France's Conseil du Credit et du Titre, and the Financial Management Association. US Senate testimony cites his work for the Federal Reserve Bank. As part of the Center, he was also involved in a working group composed of leaders in business, finance, and technology entrepreneurship sponsored by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation. The goal of the workgroup was to aid in the formulation of economic policy that lays the foundations for moving the State of Michigan away from an industrial manufacturing base to a venture capital financed, entrepreneurially driven base commercializing inventions from the State of Michigan’s major research institutions. Results from this workgroup led to the formation of three venture capital funds to serve the State. He is a regular speaker at the national and international level, on the subject of technology transfer, commercialization in biotechnology, medical devices, and information technology, as well as the venture capital and private equity industry. Some sessions include: • BIO 2006 (Chicago, USA): Financing Industrial Biotechnology Firms • The National Venture Capital Investment Conference (Minneapolis, USA): Financing Medical Technology Spinouts • The Private Equity Round-Up East (New York, USA): “Following the Investment Cannon: Which Industry Sectors Offer the Greatest Potential for Venture and Early Stage Returns” • The Early Stage Venture Capital Investing Conference (San Francisco, USA): “Why Private Equity Investors are turning to Universities and National Laboratories for Dealflow” • Abu Dhabi – GCC Health Investment and Development Forum (Abu Dhabi, UAE): “The Role of Industry, Investors, Private Equity and Venture Capital in Healthcare Sector Development” His focus on research commercialization and technology transfer is internationally noted and he was the Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Inaugural Research Commercialization Conference, held in Boston in November 2003. This conference brought together, for the first time, national-level constituents from industry and academia around the subject of building and financing spinouts and included organizations such as Harvard, Yale, MIT, Columbia, Caltech, Stanford, Lawrence Berkeley National Labs, Los Alamos National Lab, Boeing, DuPont, P&G, Intel, Microsoft, Lucent, Eastman, MPM Capital, ARCH Ventures, Sprout Group, and Draper, Fisher & Jurvetson. He is a major contributor to one of the more notable publications in the field: “Taking Research to Market: How to Build and Invest in Successful University Spinouts”, published in 2004 by Euromoney. Mr. Mourtada was born in 1974 and has earned two degrees from the University of Michigan in Economics and Engineering.