Dr. Saeid from Associate Professor to Entrepreneur

Saeid Esmaeilzadeh was born in Tehran, Iran and fled to Stockholm, Sweden at the age of 8 to the suburbs of Husby. Saeid began his academic career at Stockholm University where he studied chemistry and history of religion, before he started his research studies at the age of 21. By the year of 2000 he defended his doctoral thesis: Crystal Chemistry of Manganese Tantalum Oxides and two years later at the age of 28 Saeid became the youngest associate professor at Stockholm University.

In 2002, Esmaeilzadeh carried out a project to study crystals based on silicon nitride. In the experiments, silicon nitride and additives were melted at high temperature and then allowed to cool slowly so that crystals formed from the melt which reached a temperature of between 1,500 to 2,000 degrees. One night, something unexpected happened when the cooling water for the oven disappeared, which caused the oven to turn off.

As a result, the ceramic melt, instead of cooling slowly, solidified rapidly. The result failed and instead of crystals Esmaeilzadeh got a small yellowish transparent piece of glass.

Fifteen years of company building in niche industries

He eventually discovered that he had been given a completely new material (silicate glass) with interesting properties. After some time of analysis, Saeid realized that he had succeeded in finding a method to produce nitride-based glass materials. It turned out that these materials have high chemical flexibility, that they easily combine with other substances such as metals, while being much harder, have high heat resistance, magnetic properties and a refractive index that is almost as high as in diamonds.

Saeid Esmaeilzadeh and Ashkan Pouya applied for a patent for the new glass material that became the basis for the material development company Diamorph AB.

Saeid - with his background in research - and Ashkan - with his background in business - then founded Serendipity Group in 2004. The company has identified, founded and developed a number of companies based on academic research.

Serendipity Group has founded over 15 companies in medical technology products, biotechnology, advanced materials, clean technology and information technology. These companies include NASDAQ OMX-listed Episurf Medical, a medical technology company that designs and manufactures customized implants for cartilage damage in the joints, Diamorph, AB, an advanced materials company and OrganoClick a pure technology company that develops environmentally friendly chemicals for the treatment of wood and textiles. 

In 2018, DiaMorph was sold for SEK 1.5 billion and in connection with this, Saeid Esmaeilzadeh founded his private, wholly owned holding company Dr. Saeid AB. Since its foundation, Saeid has built four pillars aiming to facilitate entrepreneurship in Sweden; Hidden Dreams, Spartacus Capital, Mirovia Group and Centripetal.

There is an tremendous force in individuals out there that I would like to set free through entrepreneurship

- Dr. Saeid Esmaeilzadeh