Defining The World of Corporate Venturing

Scouting for Growth

Sabine VdL

Business, Entrepreneurship

5 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 1 January 2022

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode, Sabine VdL describes what corporate venturing is and what it entails, how it can help startups and entrepreneurs, why there is an increased drive towards corporate venturing today and the best strategies to deploy VC programmes. KEY TAKEAWAYS With corporate venturing, large companies develop, sponsor or invest in startup companies from the earliest stages of formation to later stages of growth to identify emerging technologies and develop cutting-edge customer-driven solutions that can resist the effects of time. The central point is that a startup company is evaluated and then funded by the corporate venture capital arm of the established business. This works well to shake off protocol and bureaucracy which can weigh down innovation when a parent company gets involved in partnership and investment decisions. Venture Capitalists (VCs) are experts at the money side of things where they focus on the financial objectives, whereas the corporate venturing team draws expertise from finance but also from strategy and industry, with their fingers on the pulse of emerging trends, opportunities, and risks. Young startup businesses can benefit tremendously from accessing the distribution, assets, core capabilities including the global resources and infrastructure of the big guns. If those established companies have well-defined processes in place, they can facilitate the education of internal stakeholders alongside startup founders on how best their solutions could scale within one or multiple geographies while providing effective mentorship. They can also find a paved path to access specific customer markets and growth. In industries such as insurance, dominated by large players, this is especially important. BEST MOMENTS ‘Corporate venturing has some similarities to what R&D is in many industries.’ ‘Corporate venturing also has some similarities to Venture Capital funding.’ ‘There will always be some great CVCs and less great CVC units out there.’ ‘80% of startups fail.’ ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew, a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers & accelerating over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner. Twitter: SabineVdL LinkedIn: Sabine VanderLinden Instagram: sabinevdLofficial Facebook: SabineVdLOfficial TikTok: sabinevdlofficial Email: [email protected] Website: www.sabinevdl.com

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to this episode of Scouting for Growth.
0:19.6	Today I would like to unpack the world of
0:21.9	corporate venturing. The main goal of corporate venturing is to deliver strategies for
0:27.2	optimizing entrepreneurial and corporate collaborations. Corporate venturing actually refers to
0:34.3	the investment of corporate funds directly into external startup companies.
0:39.3	This concept is a blend of capital investment and strategic partnership allowing established
0:45.3	companies to tap into innovative ideas and technologies, which maximizes their competitive advantage
0:52.3	in fast-moving markets.
0:55.8	Unlike traditional venturing, where individuals or venture capital firms invest in startups,
1:03.0	corporate venturing is specifically the act of companies investing in ventures outside of their usual operation.
1:12.7	So, for instance, I am an LP in small fund in France, and that allows me to gain
1:22.0	access to great innovation within my sector.
1:27.0	So note that traditional venturing is going through its own
1:30.8	pains right now due to market shifts. So raising for a new investment fund is much harder now
1:38.4	that it was before. So for entrepreneurs seeking commercial opportunities and investment, corporate venturing opens up great new opportunities.
1:49.5	It provides indeed startups with not only funding, but also access to wealth of resources, knowledge and networks that only established cooperation can offer.
2:04.6	This means that this semiotic relationship can speed the commercialization of new ideas
2:12.1	and catalyze growth for both parties involved. The push towards corporate adventuring is driven today by the competitive need to innovate and diversify portfolio.
2:27.3	Companies understand the importance of evolving with market trends and customer demands.
2:34.8	To stay relevant and grow today, indeed, they have to adopt an agile strategy that connects
2:42.5	with and foster upcoming innovations that align with their long-term business goals.
2:49.4	As a result, many corporations are actively building
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Sabine VdL, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Sabine VdL and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.