The formation of Germany-based industrials group Evonik’s €100m ($130m) corporate venturing unit is a stellar example of best practice and a nice start to the Chinese year of the Black Water Dragon.
Though the fund size is not especially big it fits within the average range for a successful venture fund, according to academic research, of about $50m to $250m (nicely summarised on the latest BIJ blog post).
The fund’s remit is to effectively invest globally and combine direct and indirect investing so that it opens doors to those who have good ideas, regardless of region or whether they are an entrepreneur or venture capital firm.
It also combines an experienced and very impressive venture manager, through the recruitment of Bernhard Mohr from BASF, with a top team within Evonik who understand the group’s culture and have a remit to drive innovation.
In July, Evonik promoted Peter Nagler to the new role of chief innovation officer, after two years as head of innovation management.
This role is part of an increasing trend at companies round the world to have someone whose job is to spread best practice from innovative projects and implement new methods and ideas from research and development and external entrepreneurs (and intrapreneurs).
That Mohr, as head of Evonik Corporate Venturing, will report to Nagler means there is less tension from having a reporting line to a chief financial officer who might focus on cost savings, a R&D head worried about "things not being invested here," or to a chief technology officer looking for an interesting gadget to spend money on.
Evonik, therefore, has set out a unit with clear goals and reporting structures – now it just needs some luck with its first few deals.
As a footnote, there is another interesting thing about Evonik setting up a corporate venturing fund – involving its shareholder base…a free ticket to the Global Corporate Venturing Symposium and special commendation will be made to the first reader to let me know what that is.