Separating business partnership personnel from the rest of the CVC team is one route to ensuring innovation strategy responds to the priorities of the corporate’s client base, according to Lisa Lambert, chief technology and innovation officer at National Grid Partners, the corporate venturing arm of energy supplier National Grid.
Deploying investors alongside business development could mean conflating deal sourcing with other strategic priorities, which in National Grid’s case included liaising across different operational units in energy segments such as heat, electricity and water.
“Most CVC firms have their investors and business development in the same department, so they are [synchronously] sourcing deals and moving investment, and making sure there is a strategic connection for those customers,” Lambert observed.
Lambert spoke on a panel together with Debbie Brackeen, chief innovation officer at insurance firm CSAA, whose corporate venturing subsidiary is Avanta Ventures.
The panel was chaired by Ken Gatz, chief executive officer of deal flow management platform Proseeder.
Brackeen expressed a preference for having strategy and corporate venturing under a single roof to avoid diminishing the unit’s relevance to the core business.
However, she was also contemplating making CVC investment and business development functions more distinct, having recently relocated Avanta investors to new offices in Mountain View, away from its Walnut Creek headquarters.
CSAA anticipated a major business shift as the auto insurance segment, responsible for the bulk of its present trade, waned thanks to more widespread carsharing and e-mobility initiatives.
“We have had some success [in terms of business development],” Brackeen added. “One of our portfolio companies, Cape Analytics, [a satellite aerial imagery analysis business] has technology critical for how we manage our business in terms of accurate underwriting, tracking change over time and how we notify the homeowner.”