Dive Brief:

• Waste Management Inc. is making moves to reduce its financial risk in start-up ventures.

• The company is instead focusing on commercial-stage investment opportunities, although few options exist at the present time.

• The waste and recycling behemoth has left around 25 investments throughout the past 18 months.

Dive Insight:

Waste Management is playing the waiting game in regard to seeing a payoff from biofuels and additional technologies that it has invested in. In 2007, the company began compiling a portfolio containing around 25 start-up waste processing firms, at a cost of approximately $400,000 million, according to company CEO David Steiner. After restructuring plans were announced in 2012, the company said it would continue to invest in startups. 

But that's clearly changed. According to the Wall Street Journal, Bill Caesar, president of Waste Management's Organic Growth, said, "You see some evolution in our investing. All things being equal I would rather invest in an operation entity than in a very early stage technology. I'd rather not have all that risk."