Shell Ventures is the corporate venture arm for Shell plc, with more than 30 team members in the U.S., U.K., the Netherlands, China and India. There are approximately 100 companies in its portfolio, all working to accelerate the energy transition through innovations in renewable power, mobility, emissions management, new fuels and digitalization.
Phoebe Wang
Investment Director, Shell Ventures
1996
Year founded
$1.4 B
Fund size
Phoebe Wang studied engineering and entrepreneurism as an undergraduate. She began her career as an engineer at a chemical plant, and later worked in the semiconductor industry. She went on to become an investment banker and commodities trader.
Although she found her work important and fulfilling, her entrepreneurial spirit was strong. She started in venture capital as a climate tech investor, and also did a short stint as a tech founder for a startup called Carednd. She has since invested in over 20 companies and sat on more than 10 boards, helping fellow entrepreneurs reach the next level with their companies and positively impact the energy industry’s transition.
At Shell Ventures, Phoebe chairs the early-stage investment committee and sits on multiple boards.
Introduction to PitchBook
Early in her career, Phoebe worked at an investment banking firm, where she helped private equity clients identify and research prospective investments. The research was mostly manual, involving mining analog resources and making a lot of phone calls. Since most of the candidates were private companies, even with the efforts, useful information was limited. It was inefficient; the glacial pace was frustrating.
“PitchBook has been super helpful when sizing up a company, understanding its history and seeing who the key board members and the management team are. I can also see how much money they’ve raised and whether I know any of their investors. It’s been tremendously helpful.”
- Phoebe Wang, Investment Director
An unexpected tool for finding talent
Hiring in the VC world doesn’t fall neatly into the traditional talent acquisition mold, so it’s important for the SV team to be a little more hands on when identifying potential candidates.
The PitchBook Customer Success team helped Phoebe navigate a tool on the platform that makes it possible to research investors based on specific criteria, such as deals they’ve made or the number of boards they are on, etc. Using PitchBook’s Screeners feature helps the SV team drill down to the most relevant candidates. As part of the SV diversity and inclusion effort, Phoebe is working with HR to build a target list of diverse prospects with significant experience forming deals in the climate space. PitchBook offered highly relevant, accurate and more detailed information than they had been able to find on LinkedIn or elsewhere.
“I never expected to use PitchBook for recruiting but it’s working, many thanks to our awesome Customer Success team. PitchBook’s Customer Success team is efficient and streamlined, with dedicated account representatives and specialists that support a specific type of customer or need.”
- Phoebe Wang, Investment Director
Results
Phoebe estimates that, with help from PitchBook, she and her team are able to analyze tens of thousands of companies annually and broaden their candidate pool, to ensure a diverse talent pipeline. PitchBook helps the Shell Ventures team invest in winning companies and candidates, and work more effectively and efficiently.
“If you looked at all the apps on my phone, PitchBook would be the most frequently used of them all. I can’t imagine doing my job without it. And every time I help advise corporations or corporations forming VCs, I always tell them, ‘You have to have PitchBook!’”
- Phoebe Wang, Investment Director
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