Thank you to our partners, Paul Gompers at Harvard University and the National Bureau of Economic Research, Will Gornall at University of British Columbia, Steven Kaplan at University of Chicago Booth School of Business and the National Bureau of Economic Research, and llya Strebulaev at Stanford University Graduate School of Business and the National Bureau of Economic Research, for helping Global Corporate Venturing with our annual corporate venturing survey of industry leaders. We asked these leaders: “What will be the big opportunities of 2017?”
Claudia Fan Munce, venture adviser at New Enterprise Associates and former managing director of IBM Venture Capital Group:
How innovations that drive growth of the parent corporation are sourced through corporate venturing activities, investing, incubating, business development for commercial partnership, M&A and other things that are part of the corporate venture portfolio of activities.
Christophe Chazot, group head of innovation at UK-based bank HSBC:
First, how financial data can be used safely to help individuals, banked and non-banked, and corporates, small and large, to be more efficient and pertinent in achieving their financial objectives. Second, ensuring the increasing number of digital services are done in a secure way for customers and society.
Peter Cowley, investment director at Martlet, the corporate angel division of UK-based engineering company Marshall:
A strong ramp-up of machine learning and artificial intelligence – software, robots – and physical robotic, including drones, opportunities. Plus the internet of things, both business-to-consumer and business-to-business, and genomic analysis tools.
Jon Lauckner, chief technical officer and vice-president of R&D at General Motors and president of GM Ventures:
Startups that develop new sensing technologies, new types of microprocessor technology and advanced cognitive software for drones and autonomous vehicles.
George Kellerman, chief operations officer and general partner at Yamaha Motor Ventures & Laboratory Silicon Valley:
Artificial intelligence (AI) is eating software, hardware and everything in between.
Skyler Fernandes, managing director of Simon Venture Group:
The advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning will create commercially viable solutions across multiple industry verticals.
Fernand Lendoye, managing director at Aviva Ventures:
Artificial intelligence, internet of things with sensors, and genomics.
Mark Sherman, managing director at Telstra Ventures:
Strategic growth investing will become an increasing force in 2017 and in years to come. Corporates will move from under 15% of total ventures dollars invested in the early 2000s to 25% today to over 35% in the next five to 10 years. Strategic growth investing is different from CVC in that it involves larger investment sizes, global orientation, and the commercial relationships to attract the best entrepreneurs.
The big opportunities in 2017 will be in consumer millennial video, next-generation networking, security, cloud apps and infrastructure, and longer-term disruptive technologies, such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality, augmented reality, drones and robots.
Abdul Guefor, investment director at Intel Capital:
Autonomous vehicles and augmented and virtual reality.
John Suh, executive director, Hyundai Ventures:
Hardware and artificial intelligence (AI) will continue to be very important. Corporate venture capital may take the lead in startups whose primary value proposition is in hardware, especially new computer architecture and sensors. AI methods and techniques that go beyond deep learning will emerge as a very hot area.
Markus Goebel, managing director at Novartis Venture Fund:
Talking about VC investing, the ones mastering in a holistic way the execution of highly attractive science and intellectual property, which speaks to the need for superior skills and financial firepower within management teams, investors and board members.
Roel Bulthuis, senior vice-president and managing director at Merck Ventures:
The convergence of digitisation, materials science and healthcare, empowering patients in the management of their health and their disease.
Lana Ghanem, managing director at Hikma Ventures:
Within the area of digital health, it will be big data analytics platforms and condition-specific wearables and genomics.
Steven Berger, managing director, new business development at Asahi Kasei America:
Healthcare monitors and associated IT. Water reuse.
Shankar Chandran, managing director and head of Samsung Catalyst Fund:
I see artificial intelligence and machine learning, or deep learning, applied to various applications including digital health, augmented reality, virtual reality, the internet of things, smart machines, as a massive opportunity that will create a new class of successful companies over the next few years.
Savitha Srinivasan, vice-president of ecosystem strategy and development at IBM Commerce:
In the enterprise space, it will continue to be the democratisation of artificial intelligence (AI) as enterprise processes infuse machine learning and data science into every business process to enhance productivity and make better business decisions. In fact, as announced by our CEO Ginni Rometty at the IBM World of Watson, the opportunity for better decision-making with AI technologies is $2 trillion by 2020.
Thierry Piret, Solvay Ventures:
Industry 4.0.
Yoshiaki Tanaka, director of business development at SoftBank US:
The internet of things (IoT) in several specific spaces, such as digital marketing, connected vehicle, smart home and facility management, and insurance, because these industries already have a bunch of structured data. If the unstructured data can combine with structured data, that would be a very useful data and IoT business.
Bruce Haymes, managing director at Nielsen Ventures:
Machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) will continue to be top of mind, but these are much broader than what corporate VCs will focus on to say that these are general investment opportunities. Instead, 2017 will be the year that corporates look to machine learning and AI to solve the very specific manual processing issues associated with their individual industries. Additionally, the blockchain continues to be a general technology theme that interests corporates, and, similar to machine learning and AI, 2017 will be the year in which corporates fine-tune their investment opportunities around blockchain towards solutions that represent specific evolutions or solutions for their specific verticals.
Ignaas Caryn, director of corporate strategy at Air France-KLM:
Smart mobility and transportation, and blockchain.
Christopher Langford, director of Lowe’s Ventures:
The biggest investment opportunities will lie in applying the various forms of artificial intelligence and automation – robotics, drones. The biggest CVC opportunities will be in continuing to evolve and demonstrating to entrepreneurs that CVC is more like financial VC but with added benefits.
Anupam Singh, principal at Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures:
Analytics and big data for industrial applications.
Dion Lisle, vice-president, head of fintech at Capgemini:
Blockchain and distributed ledger technology, and artificial intelligence and machine learning are the best technology bets in 2017. Smart CVCs will find the leading lights in each category and not only invest but ensure they permeate their organisations.
Eric Landais, chief growth officer at Degremont:
Digital.
Marc Oerke, head of digital corporate venturing at Allianz Group:
Disrupting insurance.
Shin Takano, director at Murata Ventures:
Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies plus practical use of AI technologies in multiple different industries.
Renato Valente, Brazil manager for Telefónica Open Future:
Co-investments with other corporate venturers in Brazil.
Arindam Guha, corporate development executive for M&A and venture investments at IBM:
Smart machines.
Masatoshi Ueno, senior manager at Asahi Glass:
Enterprise use of augmented reality and virtual reality.
Peter Faaborg-Andersen, global marketing and business development director at Novozymes:
A record year for corporate venture capital!
Kevin Riches, director at Carteme:
Social impact, security – cyber and physical – and artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Roman Samsonov, director of investments at Sberbank Venture Capital:
Artificial intelligence for business-to-consumer applications.
Jonathan Costello, entrepreneur-in-residence leader for Europe at Cisco:
Enabling digital trust – to account for the fusion of technologies across the physical and digital worlds.
Michael Bowring, senior investment manager at Sabic Ventures:
Pharma and nano-technologies.
David Vay, legal counsel at Orange Digital Ventures:
Artificial intelligence, fintech and new business in Africa.
Kampanat Vimolnoht, venture investment manager at Ascend Capital:
In fintech, blockchain, investment product and insurance. In other sectors, artificial intelligence, and business-to-business travel and customer relationship management.
Riyadh Al-Ruwais, partner at STC Ventures Fund:
Amazon acquisition for Souq.com.
Frank Andrasco, VC at Siemens Venture Capital:
New lower price point for robotics hardware will create opportunities for robotics software.
Anthony Palcheck, managing director at Zebra Technologies:
Robotics and automation, analytics, artificial intelligence, augmented reality.
Seiji Sato, general manager of business development unit at Sumitomo Corporation Europe:
Mobility service.
Joel Albarella, senior vice-president and head of New York Life Ventures:
“Coopetition” will be an increasingly popular approach for incumbents seeking to digitise in the face of changing consumer needs and market dynamics. This should present solid opportunities for incumbents willing to acknowledge the significant risks to legacy models, and for new entrants willing to loosen the grip on idealism.
Asish Xavier, vice-president of venture investments at J&J Innovation–JJDC:
Investments in diseases of the brain as neuroscience is entering a golden age of understanding the basis of some of the most complex diseases faced by humans.
Peter Donat, head of new ventures at First Data:
Seamless enablement of meaningful consumer omnichannel commerce.
Cynthia Mandjek, investment analyst at Orange:
African startups.
Ajay Sharma, investment associate at JetBlue Technology Ventures:
The industrial internet is reaching a huge tipping point. Companies are now investing in infrastructure to bring legacy assets online.
Don Riley, venture executive at Chevron Technology Ventures:
Probably the major high-impact opportunities for investing in 2017 will be in affordable clean water, robust high-performance last-mile networking, and low-cost robotics.
Minette Navarrete, president at Kickstart Ventures:
Innovation has historically grown through the levers of invention, industrial capital and traditional financial investment. Corporate venture capital can accelerate innovation by adding in the layer of strategic partnerships – not just smart money, but smart connected money, providing access to resources and relationships that money typically cannot buy. Corporates have a long way to go towards truly robust and productive partnerships with startups – corporate venturing aligns interests in quite a concrete fashion, and more corporate venture funds can supplement the global funding availability, as pure financial investors become more risk-averse. We see this particularly in the telecoms and media industries going more courageously into internet and over-the-top for 2017.
Renee Ryan, vice-president at Johnson & Johnson Innovations–JJDC:
The intersection of healthcare, technology and big data.
Phil Graves, managing director at Tin Shed Ventures:
Investments in companies with strong sustainability policies will deliver above market returns.
John Hamer, head of Monsanto Growth Ventures:
Machine learning and AI platforms, remote sensing platforms and transaction marketplaces for specific verticals.
Hiroshi “Hiro” Saijou, CEO and managing director at Yamaha Motor Ventures & Laboratory Silicon Valley:
Industrial automation, such as agriculture, smart mobility and transportation.
Pankaj Makkar, managing director at Bertelsmann India Investments:
Tech investing, especially in the areas of consumer, healthcare and education, followed by deep tech, will create substantial value.
Brian Pietras, head of technology ventures at Hays:
Vertical software-as-a-service (SaaS), hybrid services plus SaaS, and fintech.