meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
Scouting for Growth

The Four Types of Investment

Scouting for Growth

Sabine VdL

Business, Entrepreneurship

51.8K Ratings

🗓️ 6 January 2022

⏱️ 11 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On this episode, Sabine VdL reviews the four types of investment and who is winning the corporate venturing game as well as looking to the future to evaluate and imagine what is coming our way.   KEY TAKEAWAYS The four types of investment strategies: ‘Driving’ (strategic and tightly linked to operational capabilities), ‘Enabling’ (strategic and loosely liked to operational capabilities), ‘Emerging’ (tightly linked to metrics of financial importance), and ‘Passive’ (loosest connected to corporate capabilities and strategies). Winners at corporate venturing during the ‘Startup Phase’ have been identified as having 3 core elements: A clear and defined vision that drives a clear charter and operating model; A strong and experienced team that combines both internal operational knowledge and external understanding of the Venture Capitalist’s drivers; Established expectations and milestones to measure and ensure performance. Winners at corporate venturing during the ‘Expansion Phase’ are seen to have a slightly different set of core components: Agility in how they refine strategic investment or the focus of the portfolio; Tailored approaches to recruiting and retaining the Corporate Venturing team over time; Institutionalization of the Corporate Venturing operating platform. Winners during the “Resiliency Phase” have found ways to industrialize and democratize their learnings. They have been identified as having the following common characteristics: The Corporate Venturing program plays a strategic role and continually influences parent growth; There are purpose-built well-established end-to-end investment platforms; They have intelligent community management and communications capabilities.   BEST MOMENTS ‘Consider Driving and Enabling investment paths at the earliest stage of formation, moving to Emergent investment. This means that Passive investment in the latter stages of the CVC model and probably the best option to drive long-term financial returns.’ ‘CSAA Insurance Group, for instance, provides insurance products across a range of personal areas to AAA members as they built their own Corporate Venturing arm.’ ‘Having an agile platform is crucial’ ‘Innovations are creating seismic scale changes to our business landscape across multiple big industries. These evolutions and changes are  made possible through corporate venturing.’   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

In the previous podcast, I define corporate adventuring.

0:20.7

In this podcast, I'd like to highlight four

0:23.5

types of investment that will help frame future conversations, and also highlight who are the

0:31.5

winners of corporate venturing today. There are four types of investment that have been shown as great strategies. And this is based on

0:42.1

a study from Henry Chesbrough, which he wrote as part of a research called Making Sense of Corporate

0:50.8

Venture Capital, which was published by Harvard Business Review.

0:56.1

This is a model which I very much like because it is easy to understand.

1:01.4

So there are four types of key investment, and those are called driving, enabling, emerging,

1:10.2

and passive.

1:11.5

So imagine a 4x4 matrix where you have two axes from left to right,

1:17.1

strategy to finish returns, objectives are highlighted,

1:21.6

and then top down how closely the capabilities which are delivered are linked with the corporate center.

1:28.3

So visualize.

1:29.3

I will start with the top left corner.

1:31.3

This is where investment that are tightly linked to strategy are located.

1:36.3

Those are called driving investment.

1:39.3

The rational here is that startups selected are linked extremely closely to the operation of a corporation.

1:48.9

The VCR works closely with the group's existing businesses to share information,

1:54.6

qualify investment opportunities and connect portfolio companies to its internal initiatives.

2:00.3

The second type of investment are called enabling investments. and connect portfolio companies to its internal initiatives.

2:05.0

The second type of investment are called enabling investments.

2:08.3

These investments are still strategic,

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

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.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.