CVC Unplugged

We’re going back into the vault this week! They say that the only constant in life, and business, is change – so how do you manage it effectively? That’s why last year I spoke with Jonny Crowe, a lawyer by training whose long career has been tied together by one central theme: executing and managing transformation. This is something he’s done both as a member of the C-Suite within the structure of an organisation, or in an advisory capacity, for many companies including Cinch, BCA Marketplace, Naspers and Axel Springer, to name just a few.

For a while now, there has been a clear trend, for example, of hospital functions like patient monitoring, diagnostics, and other treatments being moved closer to the patients, even into their homes, which frees up space within hospitals, which of course, even before covid, have been dealing with huge capacity constraints. Many hospitals are operating at capacities in the high 90s and have a lot of trouble finding enough beds, enough appointments, or enough staff, for a number of reasons, but a big one is the fact that the processes within hospitals need to be overhauled and streamlined for higher efficiency.

The way we buy things has been changing. Supercharged by the pandemic, the digital and physical sides of the retail experience continue to merge, data analytics continues to play an increasingly large role in how companies target and sell their products, and the consumer journey is, hopefully, getting easier and easier.

Today I speak with two people who know a lot about getting stuff from A to B– Rose Chen, head of innovation investments and partnerships at supply chain and distribution company Wesco, and Hector Shibata, who has for over half a decade led AC Ventures, the CVC unit of coca cola bottler Arca Continental.

With valuations down from where they were a couple of years ago, the exit horizons that investors had in mind when they made their original investment ended up being further away than they thought. The IPOs are still scarce, and M&As are still too few and far between, but investors still want exits.

There are very few corporates out there that have two CVC funds, Toyota is one of them. Not only does it have an early-stage fund in Toyota Ventures, but also a growth stage unit in Woven Capital – which was previously investing on behalf of , as its name suggests, Woven by Toyota, the automaker’s next-generation mobility business, but has more recently expanded its scope to being the growth investment arm for Toyota as a whole.

For years now, people – myself included – have been waiting for the advent, in earnest, of plant-based meats. Everyone loves a barbeque, but not the meat industry’s effect on the environment, our health, or the treatment of animals themselves. Alternatives have been coming to the shelf for years now, but the same problems persist – the taste is not quite the same as real meat, and the price is far too high to really compete.

The story of the past year or so has been artificial intelligence and, in particular, generative artificial intelligence, or gen AI. Doesn’t matter what sector you’re in, or what countries you look at, everyone is trying to apply gen AI to their business, and investors are seeing a gold mine.

Sopra Steria Ventures, the CVC unit of French IT giant Sopra Steria, has been around for half a decade. After a few years, however, the investment programme was not really yielding any tangible results. The structure was not quite there, the strategy was not quite aligned with the corporate leadership wanted, and the focus was too skewed towards M&A rather than venture itself. A change was needed.

Today’s show is a bit different – instead of a normal conversation, we’re bringing you GCV’s most recent edition of the Next Wave – our monthly webinar series that features panel discussions on emerging technologies and CVC best practices.

Despite their products being so ubiquitous anywhere you live in the world, and an integral part of so much of what we eat, the B2B egg, dairy and food sectors are among the least digitised out there. What this has opened up is a lot of space for startups to make a big impact. Schreiber Foods is one of the largest dairy products producers in the world, supplying stores, restaurants and other food providers all over the world. Almost exactly a year ago, The Wisconsin-based food giant launched its corporate venture capital fund, focusing primarily on next generation supply chain and sustainability.

One of the most exciting up and coming venture ecosystems in Latin America is that of Chile. In an already innovative and fast growing business environment, corporate VCs are sprouting up left and right across the country, and funds are increasing in size. One such CVC, which announced the launch of its $100m fund late last year, is CMPC, the pulp and paper company that is one of the largest companies in the country, which will use its venturing arm to tackle problems related to sustainability, single-use plastic reduction, novel construction and packaging materials and more.

Kerry Carter is an entrepreneur, executive and investor in the area of sports technology, who also happens to be a former professional athlete, having played in the National Football League and the Canadian Football League before making a jump to the world of business and currently sits as chief operating officer of Atavus, a sportstech company focused on the mechanics of tackling.

Most people think that the Covid-19 pandemic has a supercharging effect on digital health – while that’s certainly true of things like telehealth services, is it necessarily the case for the rest of the sector? Maybe not, according to today’s guest – but independent of Covid, digital health is a booming area. Joining me today is Bill Taranto, President of MSD Global Health Innovation Fund – as it’s known outside North America – to talk about his outlook on the healthcare space – particularly in digital health – in the coming year and the shifts in the venture market.

The story of the past year or so, of course, has been an explosion in demand for all things artificial intelligence. Every company in the world is thinking about how their business, processes, or products can be improved with the addition of AI across all levels, and all are looking for applications relevant to them.

This is a podcast that focuses primarily on the world of corporate venture capital, but as we look at corporate innovation more widely, is CVC the best tool available to bring innovation into a larger organisation? According to this week’s guest, Alex Mahr, co-founder and managing partner of venture-building firm Stryber, the answer is no, or at least not necessarily. Having worked in corporate innovation for many years in a number of capacities including consultant, corporate VC, and now venture building, he sees corporate VC as perhaps a suboptimal tool to rely on, at least in isolation.

If you’re a company in the industrial sector, you’re going to have a lot of waste. Industrial processes are massively resource-intensive, whether it’s water or other raw materials, and what you get out the other side is not just the finished product itself, but literally tons of waste byproduct that needs somewhere to go. What is becoming increasingly clear is that in and around that waste, is a lot of money. Anyone who comes up with technology that can effectively help large industrials reduce the amount of waste they produce, maximise the yield they can get from their inputs, and extract useful things from their waste, will find financial reward.

Many CVCs, because of their parents’ core business, tend to have, for lack of a better term, high-minded or particularly noble missions – whether that’s saving the planet from climate change, or humanity from disease, or anything else that may in some way contribute to the saving of the world – but then you have some investor who just want you to have a grand old time with the people you care about. That’s what Convivialité Ventures, the CVC unit of Pernod Ricard, aims to do.

Innovation is moving fast across most sectors, but in healthcare we are really seeing how tantalisingly close we are to solving some of our most enduring health problems, and we’re advancing at a fast clip. We talk about the leaps and bounds that we’ve come over the past decade in treating and finding cures for notorious ailments, how patient selection is an often overlooked but crucial part of the drug discovery process, and why we should be optimistic about our ongoing combat against disease.

The construction sector continues to face a number of massive challenges – skill and labour shortages, lack of standardisation, regulatory hurdles, and a massive carbon footprint, to name just a few. Zacua Ventures, the construction-tech focused VC firm launched last year by three alumni of construction CVC units, aims to alleviate them.

For Crispin Leick, managing director of EnBW New Ventures, a passion for energy technology came early in life, and was supercharged later on when he became a father and saw his time horizons change from years to generations ahead. As head of energy generation and utility company EnBW’s corporate venturing unit, Leick and his team focus on three main areas where they can have the biggest impact, namely the electrification, digitalisation, and decentralisation of the energy system.

Today’s show is a bit different – instead of a normal conversation, we’re bringing you GCV’s most recent edition of the Next Wave – our monthly webinar series that features panel discussions on emerging technologies and CVC best practices.

What precisely is the role of a third-party CVC fund managers in the venture ecosystems of emerging economies? According to Richard Zeiger, general partner at Brazil’s MSW Capital, it’s an important role to educate and set the standard.

We have plenty of knowledge hidden all over the place, with potential for transformational change on important problems, but without the ability to commercialise and spread it out, we don’t get to benefit from it. My guest today is Owen Thompson, co-founder and CEO of Cambridge Future Tech, a deep tech venture builder situated – as its name suggests – in one of the most bustling technology and ideas hubs in the world.

IPOs are back! With the recent listings of companies like chip manufacturer ARM and delivery app Instacart, we are seeing the resurgence of the public markets after around two years of being dormant.

Cars have been on their way to essentially becoming rolling computers for quite some time now. They are better connected, increasingly electrified, and packed with features to make the driver’s life easier. Mike Smeed, managing director of Jaguar LandRover’s (JLR) venturing unit, InMotion Ventures, has been in the CVC business for only one year, but given that automotive OEMs are already designing the cars of 2030 and beyond, his outlook needs to be in decades.

My guest today is Cassio Spina, founder and lead partner of a new advisory and venture management firm Alya Ventures, which launched earlier this year.

My guest today is Michelle Gonzalez, the global head of Microsoft’s corporate venturing unit, M12. She joined me to talk about the strategic shift that M12 has been executing since the beginning of this year to align the unit’s investments closer with Microsoft, as well as the ever-growing prospects of generative AI, the resilience of other verticals like cybersecurity and the enduring appeal of blockchain infrastructure technology despite a crypto-winter.

My guest today is Arthur Alves, corporate venture capital manager of Gerdau Next Ventures, the CVC arm of Brazilian steel manufacturer Gerdau. The venture fund was established in 2020 under in partnership with American CVC-as-a-Service firm Touchdown Ventures, and Alves was hired last year to fully integrate Gerdau Next Ventures into its parent company.

Increasingly, buildings are more than just bricks and mortar. Today they’re smarter, they’re more capable, they’re greener, and they’re continually improving. Few companies are doing more work in this space than Johnson Controls, and today I’m speaking with Youssef Mawad, managing director Johnson Controls’ CVC unit, JCI Ventures.

My guest today is Jonny Crowe, a lawyer by training whose long career has been tied together by one central theme: executing and managing transformation. This is something he’s done both as a member of the C-Suite within the structure of an organisation, or in an advisory capacity, for many companies including Cinch, BCA Marketplace, Naspers and Axel Springer, to name just a few.

Money, as they say, makes the world go round, and investments in financial services grew forty-fold in the decade between 2011 and 2021, from around $6bn to nearly $240bn. That is a huge leap, but according to today’s guest, Arvind Purushotham, head of Citi Ventures, it is only the beginning.

Every successful business needs a strategy, and every business will need to innovate to survive. Strategy, of course, sets out long-term direction and intentionality, while innovation, by definition deals with new things, which naturally can be disruptive. So how do you moderate the two? Which of them informs the other more, and how?

My guest today is Miles Kirby, CEO of Deeptech Labs, the Cambridge-based accelerator and investor focused, as its name suggests, on deep tech – which is of course an umbrella term encompassing a broad set of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, quantum, advanced materials, other advanced compute, and just about any technology that has not quite been commodified yet and still has substantial engineering or scientific challenges to overcome.

Setting up a corporate venture capital unit comes with a lot of hurdles. You have to deal with a wide range of stakeholders, and you have to find a place to fit within the wider corporate structure, much of which is not necessarily well-versed in the value that a venturing unit can bring.

The scale and speed with which the venture market has changed over the past year has caused some whiplash for startups and investors alike. All of a sudden, we find ourselves in an environment with higher inflation, higher interest rates, and much more difficulty being able to raise money, be it equity or debt. While the current venture market does represent a drop from the heady heights of two years ago, in some ways it also marks a return to normal, albeit in a tougher macroeconomic environment.

One of the interesting shifts that happened during the covid pandemic was in building things. Larger construction projects slowed down while at home DIY projects took off as people had to spend inside. This is but one of the patterns that Stanley Ventures, the venturing unit of Stanley Black & Decker, had a front-row view to, sitting on the intersection of construction and consumer goods.

Everyone needs to eat, and as one of the largest private companies in the world, Cargill has played a large role in providing much of what, at least in the US, shows up in supermarkets. But what does the future of food look like? And what innovation is needed to bring agriculture up to speed with the demands of a growing population with shifting views?

Every business needs a space, but how will those spaces be valued in the future? Commercial real estate is in the beginning stages of some important changes in the way it looks, operates, shares its space, and even where it is located, much of the changes coming in the aftermath of the pandemic.

Btomorrow Ventures (BTV), the venturing unit of British American Tobacco, is a CVC unlike the rest, in the sense that While the typical aim of corporate venturing is to complement and innovate on top of its parent company’s business, BTV’s main purpose is to help its tobacco producing parent to move away from its core product and into new categories that will create growth in the future.

What does it mean to grant “unfair” access to a region? That’s what Wind Ventures, the venture capital arm of Chilean energy company Copec, wants to do for its portfolio companies wanting exposure to the Latin American market. With a wide remit that primarily straddles energy and mobility, Wind has been bullish on the energy transition and EV charging, among a number of other focus areas including logistics and retail experience.

Spinning a fund out of the corporate parent’s umbrella can be a tricky process. If done right, though, you can end up with a situation where you can enjoy both the benefits of being your own outfit and the advantages of close operational links with a big name corporate. You can have your cake and eat it too. This is where AEI HorizonX, the venture firm spun out of aerospace and defence company Boeing, finds itself.

There has never been a more crucial time to invest in technologies related to defence and security. War in Ukraine and growing geopolitical tensions between the US and China are bringing a new focus to an area that used to be taboo for investors. Global Corporate Venturing editor Maija Palmer talks to Ryan Lewis, partner at SRI Ventures and Tom Park, partner at BDC Deep Tech Fund, about why they are setting up the GCV Defense Council Advisory Board to foster collaboration between corporate investors looking to invest in this area.

The world is changing, along with the way we look at it and experience it – this includes a merging of the physical world and the virtual one. This “great convergence” forms the basis of the newly unveiled thesis of NGP Capital, the venture firm backed by Nokia.

Air travel is a notoriously hard to decarbonise sector. Next to heavy industry, aviation is the poster child for widespread carbon emissions. For United Airlines,…

If it hasn’t already been clear for at least the past decade, there is certainly no doubt of it today: data runs the world. It…

I’m joined by GCV’s Kaloyan Andonov, an analyst and reporter who also happens to be a resident data guru, and has put together an extensive…

Happy New Year! For our first episode of 2023, one thing is clear – defence is not a business like any other, for obvious reasons.…

It is our last episode of GVR for the year! To close out 2022, we’re bringing you a recording of a conversation on one of…

In all likelihood, you will be acutely aware of the energy crisis we are experiencing virtually all over the world. What you may be less…

What does it mean for a corporate venturing unit to be independent? Is that a structural dimension or a cultural one? What are the benefits…

We’ve got a big, ongoing story that’s been causing serious ripples across one of the fastest growing industries of the past few years. FTX, the…

On this episode we’ll be listening to the latest in Global Corporate Venturing’s new live webinar series, The Next Wave, which deals with an interesting…

We’ve got GCV’s very own Kim Moore back with us to talk about the rising antitrust scrutiny in the US market and the implications it…

Vitor Mascarenhas Santos is the head of EDP Ventures Brasil, the Brazil-based arm of energy utility EDP’s corporate venture capital unit. With its Portuguese parent…

Artur Faria is CEO of Oxygea, a new CVC arm of Brazil-based Braskem, which was just announced last month. Like a growing number of CVCs,…

Dr. Samuel West is a licensed clinical psychologist and specialist on organisational psychology, who is also the creator and curator of the Museum of Failure,…

Rodrigo Gruner is director of innovation and new business at Vivo, the Brazilian subsidiary of telecoms company Telefónica, which earlier this year launched its own…

Bill Reichert is partner at Pegasus Tech Ventures, a VC as a service firm that makes venture investments on behalf of corporations. This is a…

We are joined once again by GCV’s very own Kim Moore, who has recently written an article exploring a hugely important topic, food insecurity, a…

The economy may be cold but CVC teams are growing and hiring. But what should you look for in candidates? What traits and attributes are…

Gustavo Cavenaghi is the head of investments at Kortex Ventures – a CVC unit jointly backed by no less than three corporate limited partners, namely…

GCV’s very own Kim Moore joined the podcast to speak about her new feature article on nuclear fusion, exploring the advances that have made it…

Technology can only get as advanced as the materials that make it up, and things are moving fast. Anand Kamannavar is the global head of…

Global Corporate Venturing features editor Rob Lavine joins the pod to talk about the shifting models corporate VC’s are employing for their impact investment activities.…

Gonzalo Galindo is the head of Cemex Ventures, the corporate venturing unit of construction materials company Cemex. Having been at the helm of the CVC…

Hector Shibata is the head of AC Ventures, the corporate venturing unit of beverage distributor Arca Continental. In addition to a deep dive into AC…

Carlos Kokron is vice-president, managing director and head of Americas investments for Qualcomm Ventures, the corporate venturing unit of Qualcomm, the developer of semiconductors and…

Every corporate venturing and corporate innovation programme is about to face what Greg Larkin likes to call the “f*** you, pay me meeting”. This is…

Interview with Anish Patel, COO and Managing Director of Yamaha Motor Ventures. “Funky Chunk” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Interview with Roee Furman of Doral Energy-Tech Ventures. “Funky Chunk” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Interview with Vito Giallorenzo of BlackBerry’s Ivy Innovation Fund. “Funky Chunk” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

A weekly run down of the biggest stories in Corporate Venture Capital. “Funky Chunk” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Interview with Oliver Keown, Jotthe Kannappan and Vivian De Ruijter of Intuitive Venture. “Funky Chunk” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

A weekly run down of the biggest stories in Corporate Venture Capital. “Funky Chunk” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

An interview with Alex Manson from SC Ventures. “Funky Chunk” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

A rundown of the big corporate venture capital stories of the past week. “Funky Chunk” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

This week we bring you the biggest news in the corporate venturing world. “Funky Chunk” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

An interview with Amy Burr from JetBlue Technology Ventures. “Funky Chunk” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

SoftBank chips into Bucketplace’s $182m round SoftBank Ventures Asia has taken part in a $182m round for South Korea-based interior design platform operator Bucketplace. Carbon…

Shopify to buy Deliverr in $2.1bn deal E-commerce platform Shopify has agreed to acquire San Francisco-based logistics services provider Deliverr for $2.1bn in cash and…

Deezer agrees $1.1bn reverse merger  Deezer, the France-headquartered online audio streaming service backed by multiple corporates agreed to go public through a $1.13bn reverse takeover.…

Epic Games scores $2bn in corporate funding Consumer electronics group Sony and toy brand Lego’s parent company Kirkbi each invested $1bn in US-headquartered video game…

AMD to pick up Pensando for $1.9bn Semiconductor producer AMD agreed to acquire US-based edge computing technology provider Pensando in a $1.9bn deal. Bolt ties…

Instacart snips valuation to $24bn US-based online grocery delivery service Instacart, which is backed by corporates American Express, Comcast and Amazon, is cutting its valuation…

Hub Cyber Security organises $1.28bn reverse merger Israel-based cybersecurity technology provider Hub Cyber Security agreed to a reverse merger worth $1.28bn that will allow insurance…

FinAccel calls off $2.5bn reverse merger FinAccel, a Singapore-headquartered buy now pay later service backed by corporates Singapore Telecommunications, Telkom Indonesia, Telkomsel, Naver and GMO,…

LanzaTech lands $2.2bn reverse takeover agreement LanzaTech, a US-based carbon capture technology developer backed by corporates ArcelorMittal, Mitsui, Novo, Siemens and Petronas, agreed to a…

CommerzVentures collects $335m for third fund CommerzVentures, the venture capital firm financed by Germany-based financial services firm Commerzbank, launched its $335m third fund. SoftBank delivers…

SoFi to take Technisys in $1.1bn deal Online personal finance provider SoFi agreed to acquire US-based digital banking technology provider Technisys in a $1.1bn all-stock…

SoftBank pinpoints Spotter in $200m series D Internet and telecommunications group SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2 led a $200m series D round for US-based online content…

D-Wave agrees to $1.6bn reverse merger D-Wave Systems, a Canada-based quantum computing technology developer backed by IT equipment producer NEC, agreed to a $1.6bn reverse…

Sony makes $3.6bn Bungie play Sony Interactive Entertainment agreed to acquire US-based video game developer Bungie in a $3.6bn deal. SoftBank scores AInnovation exit in…

Swiggy swipes $700m in series K round India-based food ordering service Swiggy has secured $700m in a series K round featuring internet groups Prosus’ subsidiary…

Crypto.com expands fund to $500m and brings on Russell China-headquartered cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com has expanded its corporate venturing unit’s fund to $500m, becoming the latest…

Tencent helps serve up $100m for Flipdish Internet and gaming group Tencent led a funding round for Flipdish, the Ireland-based developer of a customer experience…

SenseTime scores $851m in initial public offering China-based computer vision technology provider SenseTime, which floated in Hong Kong in a $851m IPO late last month,…

Anchorage Digital holds down $350m series D funding Cryptocurrency assets platform provider Anchorage Digital raised $350m in a series D round featuring quantitative trading firm…

Arm eyeing IPO amid Nvidia deal uncertainty UK-based semiconductor technology producer Arm would look to have an initial public offering (IPO) as a backup plan…