It is an interesting experiment to type into Google’s search engine: "What can you buy for $10,000?"
The answer is suitably varied: entrance to golfer Tiger Woods’s poker tournament, a house in Ohio or a black and white Dolce & Gabbana star-print coat.For technology company IBM, a $10,000 marketing budget bought it a hugely influentialstart-up competition and accelerator that complements its commitments to venture capital funds and success beyond its managers’ expectations.
This $10,000 challenge and a fair degree of inter-nal scepticism was laid at the door of Martin Kelly, the partner responsible for establishing the IBM Venture Capital Group in Europe, the Middle East and Africa in 2007, five years after he joined the compan.
In 2010, he co-led the development of the IBM Global Entrepreneur programme. An important element of the programme was the worldwide rollout of IBM SmartCamp and the development of smart city ecosystems, championed by Kelly and part of the reason he won the Global Corporate Venturing personality of the year award.
In 2010 and 2011, IBM held 17 SmartCamp events around the world within a wider Global Entrepreneurs programme for 934 entrepreneurs – last year SmartCamp expanded to Brazil, China, Mexico, Turkey, Spain and Germany. In each location, five finalists were selected for a one to two-day event to network with 25 world-class entrepreneurs, investors and industry experts.
This year, Kelly is expanding the SmartCamp initiative to new geographies, and introducing KickStart events that can allow start-ups to progress to the regional finals and are focused on specific topics, such as healthcare and cities.
But the personality of the year award is for people offering more to the venturing ecosystem than just success to a corporation. Kelly has applied the same drive to helping his native Ireland.
In an infuential submission to the country’s Innovation Taskforce after the credit crunch, Kelly laid out in bullet points that "in addition to world-class researchers, Ireland needs to attract world-class entrepreneurs and help connect them with small and medium-sized enterprises and multinationals".
His proposals, later adopted through the €500m Innovation Fund Ireland scheme, involved a series of events globally focused on areas of national strategic importance, inviting the winners to set up in Ireland, supporting them with minimal funding for three months to complete their business plan, clustering them physically to promote networking, and linking them with investors, multinationals and mentors via this hub.
So far, VC firmsSofinnovaVentures, DFJ and Polaris/Dogpatch have been attracted to Ireland and Kelly has been active in the country’s firstAngel MeetUp last month and a start-up bootcamp.
As Kelly drily noted: "I am a demand side guy on this stuff and believe the most important considerations are availabil-ity of opportunities, not tax breaks. So for me it is about access to great dealflowand an active community. The money follows the dealflow – not the other way round.
He continued: "I also think in terms of cities not countries. So the question for me is more London vs Dublin vs Berlin vs New York than UK vs Ireland. Otherwise, I think we will see more alignment around specificthemes for innovation and so it is important that cities pick those sectors and themes where they have a potential to capture a unique global position."
In a world where there are more good ideas than people with the confidenceand ability to make them a reality, Kelly has shown how large companies can be innovative given the right support and team.
Shortlist:
Steve Socolof – New Venture Partners, for his work with the NVCA’s corporate venturing group
Martin Kelly – IBM, for advising Innovation Fund – Ireland and creating SmartCamp
Martin Haemmig – Cetim, for his work on emerging markets corporate venturing
Arvind Sodhani – Intel Capital, for value-added investing and showing the power and possibilities of cross-sectoral/regional investing and linking portfolio companies to Fortune 1000 companies as customers and suppliers
Toshihisa Adachi – Itochu, for helping Japan rebuild its entrepreneurial ecosystem using corporate venturing as president of the JVCA
Mikhail Chuckevich – Bright Capital, for encouraging Russia’s nascent corporate venturing market and international possibilities in the US
Chris Coburn – Cleveland Clinic, planned fundraising and creation of innovation alliances with peers in the US