Advise
Capital strategy
Answer the hard investor questions and reach final investment decision, with a fundraising narrative, investor readiness, and a disciplined growth plan.
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Energy advisory · Venture studio · Fund in formation
Contracted, financed, built: operator-level execution for difficult energy projects.
Sharon Creek Ventures is an energy advisory firm and venture studio. We bring founder-side execution to interconnects, feedstock, offtake, and capital so ambitious energy infrastructure can get contracted, financed, and built.
Govern
Board leadership
Get the critical operating and financing decisions right, with founder-aligned guidance at the board table.
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Venture studio
Turn a high-conviction energy opportunity into a new company, formed from scratch.
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Development capital
A fund in formation to back businesses where experience and capital compound.
Explore this pathFounder proof · Synthica St. Bernard
One difficult project. Nine years from concept to commissioning.
Sam Schutte helped originate the St. Bernard concept, then led Synthica Energy as CEO and co-founder through the siting, financing, construction, and commissioning work required to make it real.
The result was a large-scale organics-to-energy facility designed for approximately 190,000 tons of food-derived feedstock each year. That is the operating experience Sharon Creek brings to projects where every constraint has to resolve together.
2019
Site
An industrial parcel near Cincinnati aligned feedstock sources, transportation, gas infrastructure, and the controls needed for an urban setting.
Financing
Capital
Sam raised the $80 million1 to build St. Bernard with utility-backed project financing. Once the project reached final investment decision, he and his partners raised a significant equity investment2 from Goldman Sachs Asset Management’s infrastructure business.
2023
Construction
The project broke ground in July 2023, beginning the work of turning years of commercial and technical development into a physical facility.
2025
Commissioning
First feedstock arrived and commissioning began in May 2025—roughly nine years after Sam Schutte began work on the original concept.
1Project cost as reported by RETTEW, the facility’s lead design engineer: RETTEW, “St. Bernard Organics-to-Energy Facility”
2Synthica Energy announced the equity investment from the Infrastructure Business within Goldman Sachs Asset Management in August 2023; financial terms were not disclosed in that announcement: Synthica Energy announcement. For context, RETTEW describes St. Bernard as the foundation for Synthica’s broader $400 million portfolio of facilities, representing more than $1 billion in future investment: RETTEW project page.
This project record reflects Sam Schutte’s prior work as CEO and co-founder of Synthica Energy. Sharon Creek Ventures is a separate, independent firm.
Pursuing opportunities where complex energy systems can become enduring businesses.
Sharon Creek’s priority areas are nuclear fuel refinement, woody waste-to-fuel, and agricultural waste-to-fuel. Grid-scale storage and industrial AI are broader areas of interest we are watching.
Priority areas
Priority area
Nuclear renaissance
Pursuing opportunities across small modular reactors, nuclear projects, and the nuclear fuel supply chain.
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Priority area
Woody waste to fuel
Helping turn difficult woody residuals into useful low-carbon fuels.
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Priority area
Agricultural waste to fuel
Building pathways from agricultural residues to scalable energy products.
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Grid-scale storage
A broader area of interest across the evolving energy system.
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Industrial AI
Applying intelligence where infrastructure and operations meet.
Explore the marketAt this time, due to outstanding obligations, Sharon Creek Ventures is not pursuing or engaging in U.S.-based anaerobic digester development.
Direct answers
Clear answers about Sharon Creek.
A concise reference for founders, partners, investors, and research assistants evaluating the firm.
- What is Sharon Creek Ventures?
- Sharon Creek Ventures is a founder-led energy advisory and venture studio that helps difficult energy companies and infrastructure projects move toward contracted, financeable, and buildable reality.
- Who does Sharon Creek Ventures work with?
- The firm works with energy founders, developers, and boards that need operator-level help with commercialization, project development, capital strategy, governance, or execution.
- What energy areas is Sharon Creek focused on?
- Current efforts include woody waste-to-fuel, nuclear fuel refinement, and agricultural waste-to-fuel. Broader interests include grid-scale storage, niche solar, electrofuels, and industrial AI. These areas of interest are not representations of current client engagements.
- Is the Sharon Creek fund currently investing?
- No. Sharon Creek Ventures is raising and forming a fund intended to invest development capital. The fund is not represented as closed or actively deploying capital.
- How are Sharon Creek engagements structured?
- Advisory work is scoped per engagement, typically retainer or project-based. Equity-for-services is considered for studio ventures, where Sharon Creek helps form the company.
- How does Sharon Creek handle conflicts between advisory clients and the fund?
- Advisory work and the fund are kept separate. Hiring Sharon Creek as an advisor does not give a company priority for, or a commitment of, fund capital, and the fund is not currently investing. If a future fund investment could involve an advisory client, Sharon Creek will disclose that relationship to the parties involved before going ahead.
Turn your energy visions into reality.
Bring Sharon Creek in when the project needs more than advice—when interconnects, contracts, capital, incentives, and execution all have to come together.
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