Ellen Ehrenpreis, partner at law firm Orrick, interviewed Nicolas Sauvage, managing director of TDK Ventures, the corporate venturing subsidiary of electronics manufacturer TDK Corporation. Sauvage explained that TDK Ventures was launched in July 2019 but already had four deals under its belt, while being focused on various areas.
Sauvage also thanked the corporate venturing community and GCV for having been able to learn the best practices of corporate venturing and how to set up a CVC unit. He added that with the little experience acquired so far, he felt “ready to share some tips with the newbies” who may seek to establish an investment unit.
Sauvage also shared some ideas on putting together an effective team and took the opportunity to present members of his team in the audience.
On matters of recruiting and staffing, he explained he actively sought diversity of thinking: “I was trying to find people who thought differently from me and from each other.” He acknowledged that he “wanted to find smart and technically-oriented people” but that they needed “not necessarily have a CVC background”.
Sauvage also outlined his general views of a corporate venturing unit, which he perceived as a customer-seller relationship: “Our customers are our portfolio companies. We are incentivised to add value for entrepreneurs.” Along those lines, he pointed out that the key question for TDK Ventures to ask itself was: “How likely are they [entrepreneurs] to recommend us to other “customers”?” He firmly stated his conviction that: “As long as you focused on this, you are [moving] in the right direction.”
Discussing the issue of reporting lines, Sauvage said he had insisted on having an investment committee in the same time zone, rather than people from various places around the world: “I insisted on having it in a single time zone. It has to be reachable. We do not call them every day or every week but when we do call them, they are responsive.”
Sauvage and Ehrenpreis were accompanied on the main stage by the Starship delivery robot and the second model of Wheels’ e-bike. Starship is an autonomous delivery robot used around college campuses within a range of five miles, while Wheels is an operator of a shared electric mobility platform for dockless mobility with its compact e-bikes.
Sauvage praised the unit economics of both solutions and pointed them out as examples of strong positions in TDK Ventures’ portfolio that were expected to generate solid financial returns.