As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to build, public life shuts down and we all retreat indoors, it becomes more important to focus on helping other members of our local communities. But as everyone finds out when they attend a GCV event, we are all part of a community, too, and others are looking up to the members of the Leadership Society.
In that spirit, GCV will be catching up with a series of key figures in corporate venturing in the coming weeks to see how they are coping with the new circumstances and how they expect it to affect their practices. We kicked off with Callum Cyrus talking to Dominque Mégret, head of Swisscom Ventures, which is finding itself focusing on domestic deals.
In the second piece, Liwen-Edison Fu spoke to Donald Lacey, managing director of Chinese insurer Ping An’s $1bn Global Voyager Fund. Although it faced Covid-19 first, China appears to have been relatively successful in getting it under control. The fund is sharing expertise with international portfolio companies to help them weather its effects. Lacey expects large corporate venturers already committed to innovation to remain in the space, though younger, more reckless founders may find their high burn rates very dangerous.
In the third update, Lisa Lambert, head of National Grid Partners (NGP), explained to Rob Lavine how Covid-19 restrictions mean that, while CVCs can continue to conduct preparation, sealing a deal can be difficult without being able to meet founders and see their technology in action. NGP’s key areas of IT and energy technology may not be as vulnerable as other sectors, but longer sales cycles will hit companies in all sectors.
Tarik Galijasevic of Allstate Strategic Ventures predicted collaborations among corporate VCs and startups will accelerate as they look to innovative technologies to address customer needs during tumultuous times.
Check out the GCV webinar hosted by Kaloyan Andonov and James Mawson on how the community is addressing the problems caused by the pandemic with insights from Jonathan Tudor of Centrica Innovations, Jack Crawford from Impact VC, Faegre Drinker’s James Fischer plus Tracy Isacke, Alex McCracken, Barry O’Brien and Efrat Turgeman from SVB.
If you are interested in sharing your insights, get in touch with news editor Rob Lavine at:
rlavine@globalcorporateventuring.com
