Martin Bloom, a former corporate strategist at Unilever and with 25 years experience in strategic partnering, technology commercialisation and business strategy, is an active and successful private venture capitalist investing in technology and life sciences companies in both the UK and the US.
Martin is actively involved in China, as well as in India.
1. Martin is Chairman of ReneSola, the Chinese solar wafer manufacturer based in Zhejiang Province. We listed the Company on AIM on 8 August 2006 (SOLA.L)), raising US$50 million at a market capitalisation of US$150 million; its value is now over US$1 billion. ReneSola has been profitable and has experienced rapid growth since it started trading in 2005. The Company was recently voted ˇ°IPO of the Year Companyˇ±? At the Quoted Company Awards 2007.
2. Martin is Special Advisor for Asia and a Board Member international telecom and media convergence venture capital fund, Argopolo Capital Partners.
3. Martin is UK-Chairman of the UK-China Venture Capital Joint Working Group, established by the British and Chinese Governments in January 2005 to foster collaboration between the venture capital and private equity industries in both countries, and launched by Gordon Brown, the UK's Finance Minister, during his official visit to Beijing in February 2005.
4. Member the Advisory Board of a UK and Chinese government-funded collaborative programme that brings together a number of UK and Chinese universities for joint research projects.
Martin has a B.Sc. (Soc.Sc.) Honours in Economics from the University of Southampton and an M.Sc. in the History of Science jointly from Imperial College and University College, London.
Martin Bloom is also a professional photographer and will have an exhibition of some of his works in a gallery in Beijing later this year.