We are changing the name of our company from High Alpha Innovation to Alloy Partners.

As I wrote back in 2020 when we launched High Alpha Innovation, our lofty but simple goal was to co-create compelling startups with large organizations and, in the process, help those organizations achieve tangible innovation. 

Over the last five years, we've launched dozens of advantaged startups and worked with many amazing entrepreneurs, innovators, and leaders to solve some of the world's biggest problems through venture building.

For example, we:

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• Partnered with leading corporations like Elanco, Wellstar Health System, CMS Energy, Capital One Ventures, Bayer Crop Science, Koch Industries, and many more to address persistent challenges facing their industries: from the need for greater supply chain visibility (Amplio), to improving on-farm sustainability and financially supporting farmers (Athian), to healthcare workforce optimization (vflok).

• Established venture studios and executed venture-build programs with esteemed research universities, including the University of Wisconsin, Purdue (DIAL Ventures), UNC (Eshelman Innovation), and Notre Dame (1842 Fund and Studio) that have led to pioneering startups tackling issues tied to the agriculture value chain, opioid epidemic, and health equity.

• Built the first ever U.S. Treasury-backed venture studio, Fieldbook Studio, using State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI) funding, which is well on its way to launching multiple startups in the retail value chain (and further helping the state of Arkansas bolster its entrepreneurial ecosystem and attractiveness as a startup hub).

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As our company and work have grown, so have our aspirations.

What began as a small spinout from High Alpha’s venture studio is now a team of 50+ across the U.S. that has helped launch more than 30 portfolio companies and 6 venture studios, domestically and internationally.

While our mission and vision remain the same, we decided the time has come to adopt a new name and brand — specifically, one that better encapsulates our work to co-create advantaged startups.

We chose a name that pays homage to our history, but one that can also grow and scale with our business for many, many years to come.

With that, I am very excited to introduce you to Alloy Partners.

Why the shift to Alloy Partners

An alloy is a substance created through the melding of multiple metallic elements that ultimately yields a combined product that is stronger and more durable than its constituent parts. This couldn’t be a more perfect metaphor for our work.

We are melding large corporations, entrepreneurs, and venture investing to create startups that are advantaged: stronger, faster, and more durable than their peers.

We have used this metaphor as the name for our annual conference, Alloy, for the last six years.

Thus, it only seemed fitting as we discussed the need to evolve our brand to shift to Alloy Partners as the new name of our company.

When Andrew Carnegie started his steel company and hired chemists, the world thought he was crazy. But Carnegie knew that, by applying scientific rigor to the production of steel, he could take what the world perceived as ‘low-quality’ ore and turn it into consistent, high-quality steel.

Over time, Carnegie vertically integrated to exploit his secret, until the rest of the world caught on.

We’re doing something similar at Alloy Partners. Our ‘ore’ is a mix of the business problems and partnerships we source from corporations, and our ‘steel’ is new, external ventures that live outside their core business.

We are a team of ‘chemists’ — experienced and passionate entrepreneurs, investors, innovators, and strategists — who knows how to apply a rigorous process to create equity out of thin air, endow it with advantage, and work with talented startup co-founders to turn that equity into something consistently valuable.

The world doesn’t believe corporations can innovate anymore.

While true that the old methods of innovation are not as effective as they once were, we believe we can combine the best of startups and large corporations — including their ability to understand markets and execute efficiently at global scale — to see around corners, unlock opportunity, and shape the world.

Corporations must innovate faster to thrive in a future that is coming quickly. There is no data about the future. The only way to get data about the future is to create it.

‍Action creates data, and startups are a fantastic vehicle more corporations are leveraging to take action that shapes the future.

‍To those who have joined us on this journey to date: Aside from our new name, nothing else changes except that, because of what we have learned over five years, we are more capable, focused, and energized about the opportunities in front of us.

We are more confident than ever in our thesis: that we can build startups with advantage by partnering with world-leading organizations and entrepreneurs.

‍To those who haven’t yet joined us: We hope you will, as we’ve got big ambitions in the years ahead — and the blueprint required to help corporations realize the growth and transformation they desire.

Let’s build, together.