Corporate Venturing - a Framework / 100 Ways Startups Can Transform Your Organisation [BOOK]

For large companies and corporations, collaborating with startups has become a mandatory exercise. The scale of challenges they face is such that external assistance is now necessary. More and more organisations have understood the importance of corporate venturing. Yet, fundamental questions remain. What concrete benefits can startups bring to my business? What are the most relevant startup engagement models? Where to start?

This book outlines a new "Corporate Venturing Framework", listing 100 ways startups can transform any organisation, and 50 startup engagement models. These two lists are articulated around a canvas that will help innovation professionals unfold the blueprint of their open innovation activities: a clear strategy, smart objectives, relevant initiatives, a pragmatic road book and a versatile performance monitoring dashboard.

The Corporate Venturing Framework is the model you need to quickly and efficiently start or review your startup collaboration strategy.

This book features real-life examples with companies like Nike, IBM, Siemens, BMW, Unilever, Shell, Microsoft, Pfizer, Facebook, Google, Toyota, Ford, Renault, General Electric, Johnson & Johnson, Nestlé, McDonalds, Lego, Amazon, Walmart, Coca-Cola, Starbucks, Ikea, Danone, Cisco Systems, Netflix, L'Oréal, Disney, Vodafone, Adobe, Accenture, AstraZeneca, Uber, Airbus, Volkswagen, Bayer, Bosch, P&G - and more.

Laurent Kinet is a serial tech entrepreneur based in Belgium, venture investor, Corporate Venturing Expert, and CEO of Novable, a open innovation technology company.

From novable.com

Corporate innovation is a key driver for global economic growth, and with the world changing faster and faster, it has become even more critical for large companies and corporations to integrate renewed innovation practices into their processes. This is obviously a big challenge, and engaging with startups is now a matter of survival. External innovation has become a business imperative. Startups may well be the best future-prediction engine ever developed. Innovation comes from small, agile organisations, from people taking risks and pushing boundaries forward. Corporations understand that well, and the corporate venturing practice has evolved into an industry.

However, this industry is still nascent, as no standard, structured framework exists on the market yet. Being closely related to innovation, corporate venturing initiatives are disparate and custom-designed. The existing literature is too academic, too technical, or too specific to be properly deployed at scale. On the other hand, a younger generation enters the corporate development workspace, with new expectations and work habits, not to mention the startup landscape itself, for which change is the only constant.

The main thesis can be summarised as follows: startups and corporations are two different animals. Startups have creativity, corporations have industrial power. But, they can only thrive through mutual integration channels and with a native collaboration mindset.

This book provides a clear, versatile and repeatable framework for innovation-related professionals to engage with corporate venturing initiatives on the right foot, thanks to an easy-to-read, easy-to-use and easy-to-disseminate playbook.

This book is a framework, a canvas. It lists 100 transformative benefits an organisation can gain from collaborating with startups, as well as 50 startup engagement models, both lists being articulated in a canvas that any professional can use immediately.