If corporate venturing 101 is about thinking through what is needed to set up a unit, ie convincing management to provide money, resources and sufficient independence and put in place the people and organization to start investing and monitoring portfolio companies, the second stage is about proving the model works and that the venturing unit adds value.
The thought-leaders in this added value corporate venturing ecosystem, such as leaders from Coca-Cola, Intel Capital, Qualcomm, Ecomobilite Ventures, Shell, AOL, IBM, Schlumberger (see news) and Evonik, will be discussing how they have set up and refined over the years their units at the second annual Global Corporate Venturing Symposium on May 15 in London. The first Symposium last year looked at how corporations were venturing into a world of innovation by increasingly set up corporate venturing units. The second event will discuss the techniques more than 140 groups have been using in setting up a fund or unit over the past 18 months as well as what the future holds and the data and methods to add value.
The current agenda is available here, with the first keynote speech from Justin Adams, who will next month step down as head of oil major BP’s corporate venturing unit (see story) to work on the next iteration of how companies can collaborate on transformative technological change.
Having set up what is now BP Ventures under the oil group’s Alternative Energy division, Adams and his team in many ways typifies both what a successful unit can achieve and the level of leadership and strength-in-depth seen among many of the best groups in the industry.
The Symposium will also cover how corporate venturing units can deal with the enormous growth of the industry that is potentially on the verge of a 10-fold increase in size over the next few years, including private equity-backed portfolio companies (see report) and partner with other types of equity investors in entrepreneurs as well as grapple with many of the biggest challenges they face, such as how to invest across sectors and regions.
The Symposium will finish with a keynote by entrepreneur and investor Jon Moulton, who has been responsible for building many of the biggest and most successful private equity firms, including what are now Permira, Apax Partners, Alchemy and Better Capital, and is also one of the world’s largest and most successful angel investors and a dab hand as a wine-maker.
The Symposium follows the second annual Global Corporate Venturing Awards and a gala dinner and, for those also wanting to carry back a trophy of a different type, there will be our first tech-scouting session during the afternoon of May 14, which is being held in association with our partners at American Security Challenge.
"Partners" is perhaps the best final word. Although this trade title has been threatened with a surprising amount of attempted blackmail over what is published and bad debts from some of the world’s biggest corporations over the past 18 months, it has tried to stay true to its motto from David Hume’s work that: "Truth springs from argument among good friends."
I look forward to welcoming more of you as good friends at our Tech-scout, Awards and Symposium on May 14 and 15. And an especial thank you to those who have helped on the event advisory board of Andrew Gaule (Corven), Heidi Mason (Bell Mason Group), Mark Radcliffe (DLA Piper) and John Taysom (Harvard Innovation Fellow) for their help.