Koch Labs Koch Labs

Welcome to a place where

TRANSFORMATIONAL TECHNOLOGIES AND IDEAS SHAKE hands with reality.

Above the Midwestern plains, next-generation autonomous drones inspect two of America’s largest fertilizer plants, inspecting infrastructure, monitoring safety and vigilantly looking for anomalies.

This is Koch Labs at work.

Driven to transform

Transformation has been a continual driving force that’s propelled Koch Industries to where we are today – a global company with diverse capabilities across a vast array of industries and technologies. Those very same characteristics make us an ideal laboratory and proving ground for the transformative technology of tomorrow. We call this our Koch Labs capability. And at its heart is our people – more than 120,000 employees in about 60 countries – and a shared mental model of Koch as a lab. Our people are principled entrepreneurs empowered to collaborate, experiment, seek knowledge and challenge the status quo in mutually beneficial ways.

Our people are principled entrepreneurs empowered to:

COLLABORATE

Experiment

Seek knowledge

Challenge The status Quo

Since 2019, we’ve introduced more than 400 tech companies to Koch subject matter experts.

We’ve performed demonstrations or experimental test cases for more than 100 tech companies.

A global proving ground.

Koch Labs connects the promising, disruptive technologies of our investment portfolio companies with the fully operational, diversified capabilities across Koch Industries. Once engaged, we test, refine and accelerate to market innovations that make life better – in areas such as autonomy, computing, energy, cyber security, industry 4.0 and blockchain, to name but a few. As an offering of Koch Investments Group, this unique-in-the-world capability delivers our portfolio partners a powerful opportunity and advantage that goes far beyond mere financial investment. While, at the same time, creating fulfilling opportunities for our employees to engage with and put to work these next-generation technologies for Koch.

Koch Labs provides our external partners and portfolio companies with the opportunity to access Koch’s applicable capabilities, facilities, knowledge and people. It also drives our people to collaborate, seek knowledge and continuously search for a better way. This powerful combination empowers both our partners and employees to continuously develop and improve new technology with real customers, real suppliers and, yes, real challenges to discover and overcome – gaining real-world knowledge to apply for the future.

Test. Iterate. Refine. Succeed.

With more than 120,000 employees in more than 70 countries, Koch companies offer a vast canvas for experimentation.

Health care, computing, energy, cyber security, industry 4.0 and blockchain are but a few of the categories we experiment in.

The Koch Labs Experimental Framework

Koch Labs delivers a unique opportunity to test technology in a wide range of industries or verticals – empowering disruptive technologies to strengthen, scale up and break through. Here’s how it works.

We convene subject matter, capability and technical experts within Koch and our investment partners, to understand the vision, challenge and opportunity, share knowledge and determine which resources and capabilities best achieve desired results.

Develop

measure

engage

discover

We identify use cases and then design and perform high-value, quality proof-of-concept experiments to test, refine and engage pilot programs from across Koch’s diverse business operations base.

To engage Koch’s extensive capabilities, we tap the subject matter experts within them – our network of entrepreneurially minded employees. Their knowledge, expertise and robust experience helps bring our investment partners rapidly up to speed in areas that include legal, regulatory, supply chain and manufacturing. This can fast-track a technology’s full potential by activating Koch as a partner, customer, supplier and technology prover.

We objectively evaluate experiments to determine the value created for both the portfolio company and Koch - value that would not have been realized alone. That’s the mutual benefit that drives us.

Koch Labs Principles

These are the powerful concepts and mental models critical to unleashing the potential of Koch Labs’ capability.

Virtuous Cycles of Mutual Benefit

When we make an initial investment, we rapidly grow our knowledge and connections about the industries and markets it lives in. These insights expand our capability and often reveal additional complementary investment opportunities that synergize with the initial one in mutually beneficial ways – further growing our knowledge and capability network in a continual, repeating cycle that benefits all involved.

Virtuous Cycles of Mutual Benefit

Experimentation

Transformation

Principled Entrepreneurship

Knowledge Systems

Virtuous Cycles of Mutual Benefit

Experimentation

Transformation

Principled Entrepreneurship

Knowledge Systems

Since 2019, we’ve commercially deployed around 30 new technologies as a result of Koch Labs.

We practice a philosophy of mutual benefit that forges win-win relationships with our tech partners.

Stories from the Lab

Diving deeper

Koch Labs is empowered by engaged employees with broad expertise, committed to mutually beneficial outcomes with our partners. If you are a Koch employee that would like to learn more about how you can engage with Koch Labs, drop us a line.

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Get in touch

Percepto + koch labs

Trackonomy + Koch Labs

DESKTOP METAL + KOCH LABS

send in the drones

A Koch Labs experiment with portfolio company Percepto has deployed autonomous drones, using AI software, to transform and streamline safety inspections at a Koch Fertilizer plant in Enid, Oklahoma.

Read full story

A Stickier Solution

Trackonomy’s smart tape monitors and relays information like location, position and temperature across the IoT. Koch Labs has deployed it within Koch company facilities, to aid in product and maintenance tracking.

company

Read full story

SOLID INNOVATION

Additive manufacturing experiments with portfolio investment Desktop Metal’s 3D metal printing technology are transforming a Koch company’s ability to create complex geometrical industrial parts.

Trackonomy + Koch Labs

DESKTOP METAL + KOCH LABS

Koch Labs plays a vital role in helping Koch transform by identifying, engaging and deploying the latest technologies across our business units. By being dissatisfied with the status quo, sharing a vision for a better way and galvanizing the belief that we can achieve it, we are driving improvement and transformation enterprise-wide.

Transformation

Our relentless experimental mindset is driving value creation across our enterprise. Since 2019, we’ve introduced almost 400 new technology companies across a huge range of fields to subject matter experts in Koch. Of those, more than 100 of those have performed demonstrations or experimental test cases and about 30 have been deployed commercially.

Experimentation

One of our Guiding Principles is to become the preferred partner of customers, employees, suppliers and communities. To do so, we practice a philosophy of mutual benefit that forges a win-win relationship that creates superior value for our companies, our partners and society.

Principled Entrepreneurship

Building and engaging as many robust knowledge systems and networks as possible, both internally and externally, is a key driver of Koch Labs' capability, success and ability to create value. Seeking and connecting knowledge from any and all sources empowers us to identify the most viable disruptive technologies and the ways to drive transformation.

knowledge systems

Percepto + KOCH LABS

Trackonomy + Koch Labs

DESKTOP METAL + KOCH LABS

Read full story

SOLID INNOVATION

Additive manufacturing experiments with portfolio investment Desktop Metal’s 3D metal printing technology are transforming a Koch company’s ability to create complex geometrical industrial parts.

Read full story

SPEEDING THE TEST

Koch Disruptive Technologies portfolio investment Sense Biodetection is collaborating with a Koch company subsidiary to conduct rapid diagnostic experiments for both influenza and COVID-19 that can produce lab quality results within minutes.

company

Read full story

send in the drones

A Koch Labs experiment with portfolio company Percepto has deployed autonomous drones, using AI software, to transform and streamline safety inspections at a Koch Fertilizer plant in Enid, Oklahoma.

DESKTOP METAL + KOCH LABS

SENSE BIODETECTION + KOCH LABS

Percepto + koch labs

DESKTOP METAL + KOCH LABS

SENSE BIODETECTION + KOCH LABS

Percepto + KOCH LABS

Stories from the Lab