Motorola Solutions Venture Capital, the corporate venturing unit of the US-based technology company, is making bold plans for its future after a change of reporting lines.
We caught up with Reese Schroeder, head of Motorola Solutions Venture Capital, and Paul Steinberg, chief technology officer of Motorola Solutions, who is one of the main speakers at the Global Corporate Venturing Symposium this week in London.
Schroeder has moved to report to Steinberg in Motorola Solutions, having previously reporting to mergers and acquisitions.
Steinberg said of Motorola Solutions Venture Capital: “This is an evolving story rooted in the belief that to deliver a compelling value proposition for our customers it is impossible for us to invent it all.”
The group is looking for both immediate term deals and longer term bets. Steinberg added: “We won’t make an investment if we don’t have the supporting structure in place. Some deals we will do if they impact our product focus here and now and there is an agreement on how it will play a role in our value proposition, while others will be longer term bets on the future.”
Schroeder said: “One of the things that has been really positive in this change is for the deals that are longer bets on the future, we have created a pathway for those investments to end up in products or services.”
Steinberg said: “We are also not naïve, in the sense we are aware that not all these deals will succeed as this is a high risk, high reward thing. Yet Reese does a fantastic job making sure that if we do invest, it has legs. “
Schroeder added: “One of the things that has been really helpful is we have put in place a liaison team with representatives of the business units. This is a great supporting structure, which I and many corporate venturing groups have coveted for some time.”
Steinberg added: “One of the three recipients — the heads of products or services or the CTO office — one of them has to be on board with an investment. One of them has to be the landing zone or we wouldn’t do it. For every investment there is at least one champion in the business units or CTO.”
Steinberg said: “Obviously what we live for is to derive commercial, strategic benefit from what we are doing here. The value proposition of the venture company is growing and benefiting Motorola Solutions and itself growing and benefiting from that. The question is have we advanced strategic goals for how we do what we do today?”
Steinberg said: “We have the unflagging support of our CEO, Greg Brown, who believes in this and what we are doing.
Schroeder said: “We are going a step beyond just bringing something in to solve a problem. We are using a cluster of investments sequenced together that can add up to a larger-value product. We have created broader themes and are stringing together investments to advance these themes.”