Global Venturing Review

In recent months we've seen quite a few corporate VC units either shut down, or get spun off, as their corporate parents grapple with how to deal with a tough macroeconomic environment. That's not always the case though – we're also seeing a number of other CVCs get launched, and some existing CVCs launch big new funds. My guest today is in the latter category – I speak to Ingo Ramesohl, managing director at Robert Bosch Venture Capital, the CVC arm of German engineering and technology company Bosch, which is known as Bosch Ventures for short. We talk about the brand new €250m sixth fund that the unit just launched, and their plans for it, as well as more broadly, why it is so important for companies to push ahead with innovation even when the going gets tough – and why those that stay the course can benefit from a competitive advantage in the market. We also talk a lot about Open Bosch, which is Bosch Venture's in-house venture clienting arm – we touch on how they select companies and allocate resources, why its important to be one of a startup's early customers in order to be part of the innovation, and what areas the unit is looking at – such as data centres and healthcare – to help position it's parent company for the massive industrial disruptions on the horizon. The post Economic ruts are a good time to double down appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

Space has historically been the domain of governments – as that has changed and it's becoming a more private sector-based commercial endeavour, something else has been changing too, and that is that whereas before space was a matter of launching things up where they will do something for a while, then they come back down. What's emerging now is the prospect of an entire economy in space, for space – where things don't always need to come back down to earth for maintenance, or refuelling, for example, and can continue to operate outside earth. My guest today is Timur Davis, director at Munich Re Ventures, where much of his focus is trained beyond the atmosphere, in startups who want to operate in orbit. We talk about how the unit's thesis of investing in the picks and shovels of space – the enabling technologies that allow for the space economy to operate effectively – things like traffic management and servicing in orbit.  We also talk about the changing business models – how the pendulum has swung back to startups searching for government-based revenues for their stability – as well why mid-stage space startups have trouble getting funded, the development of in-space regulations and norms, how much of space is wide open in terms of the competitive landscape, and much more. The post Investing in the in-space economy appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

Demand on the power grid is not getting any lower, in fact it's growing faster than ever, and putting real pressure on the existing infrastructure. As more energy-hungry customers like data centres are coming online, better solutions need to be found to get more capacity through the system. My guest today is Pradeep Tagare, head of investment at National Grid Partners, the US-based VC arm of National Grid, which is a grid operator active in the UK and the US. We talk about the challenges facing grid operators at a time when the growth in demand for power is unprecedented, not least because of the phenomenal growth in data centres in the age of AI. We touch on how people are thinking about providing to these large demand customers like data centres, and what solutions exist to increase grid capacity even without a wholescale upgrade of the grid infrastructure itself. We also talk about the progress being made in the area of distributed energy resources, and how the challenge of interoperability of those diverse energy sources is largely solved, and how AI can be used from anything from finding out where best to place data centres, to figuring out how to best reduce the problem of vegetation overgrowth which can bring networks down, and more. But first, I speak to Kim Moore about the growth of the space startup ecosystem in Europe. The post Dealing with an unprecedented demand for power appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

The world is becoming, if not a more dangerous place, then perhaps a testier one. Over the past decade or so, we've seen an intensifying staccato of cyber attacks against critical infrastructure and other large facilities, which can, of course, bring with it huge financial and operational problems. It is increasingly not just a problem for individual companies, but for nations as a whole. Private companies may own energy assets, for example, but an attack that disrupts that energy supply is a national security issue. What we have seen in response to this is a strengthened focus on cybersecurity that focuses on operational technology – the physical realm – not just the digital IT side of the ledger. More and more investors are looking to back startups that protect not just data and digital systems, but physical systems that people depend on for their daily lives. Joining me today is Stephen Hurford, who sits in the host seat to ask me about it for a change. The post Protecting critical infrastructure is big business appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

My guest today is Talia Abramowitz, managing partner of Deloitte Ventures, a unit which has made the vast majority of its direct investments in Canadian startups and is well-placed to speak to the feelings within ecosystem. We talk about how startups and investors are thinking of navigating the current uncertainty, and how far along Canada has come in terms of its CVC activity. The unit has also just recently passed its three-year anniversary since founding, so we talk about the challenges of standing up a new CVC, as well as the evolving business of AI, and much more. The post Canada's startups navigate the new normal appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

It is commonly thought that if you're dealing with deeptech, that means you're dealing with long horizons and long timelines to make your money back after an investment, but that is not necessarily the case, according to my guest today. I speak with Julien Fredonie, who heads up investments in Europe and Africa for Honda Xcelerator Ventures, the corporate VC arm of Japanese auto manufacturer Honda. The unit looks at  deeptech and hardtech across a number of areas including decarbonisation, mobility, robotics and manufacturing, and I wanted to talk to Julien about how he sees CVCs coming along in terms of their ability to help those startups scale up. We talk about how much better suited corporate investors are today to back hard tech companies, relative to one or two decades ago. We also touch on the advantages of investing in the European and African markets, how a new generation of more tech-savvy investors is emerging, the importance of having a founder-focused investment approach, bridging the deeptech funding gap, and more. But first, I speak to GCV's Oishani Mitra about how India – one of the largest military forces in the world – is working hard to build its own defence tech ecosystem. The post How CVCs can help hard-tech startups appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

Innovation has long been one of the primary forces shaping power around the world. If your society is innovating, it will be more prosperous, more influential, and more consequential.  In today's world, we're seeing some shifts in global power dynamics between democracies and less democratic nations. We're also seeing traditionally democratic governments on the backslide, losing faith and confidence in the systems that have kept them doing so well for so long.  My guest today is James Mawson, founder and CEO of GCV, who I wanted to talk to about the role that innovation has to play on the grand scale - how open societies are more conducive to innovation, and how innovation can help keep them ahead of their rivals. The post How innovation can keep democracies ahead appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

Since the end of last year/beginning of this year there's been quite a bit of optimism that investors will once again be able to count on the public markets for exits – with 2025 being highly anticipated as the year where listings will be back on the menu.  But that is now more uncertain – or at least the timing of it is – what with the amount of uncertainty that's been injected into the market, for the most part by policy decisions in the US. I speak to GCV's editor-in-chief, Maija Palmer, about the hopes for public markets. The post Everyone is waiting for IPOs, but will market uncertainty delay them? appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

If we rewind to 2021, as we were starting to come out of the covid pandemic, there is nowhere you could look without seeing a flurry of investment rounds, many of them very, very big, backing Web3 and crypto startups. Everyone and their dog was looking to get a piece of the action. Eventually, of course, it cooled off but it's been making a big comeback in recent months, especially since the US elections late last year. What we are now starting to see, which we didn't see even back when valuations were massive and everyone was looking for a crypto startup to sink their money into, is the spectre of exits. Today I speak to GCV's special features editor, Rob Lavine, about the growing tide of M&As we're likely to see in the space, what kind of investors are looking to jump in, if we're expecting the return of megarounds, and why gaming and entertainment is likely to be a huge frontier bringing in people who might not otherwise have been exposed to Web3. The post The coming Web3 acquisition wave appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

My guest today is Greg Zavorotniy, who was managing director at what was then called BayWa Energy Ventures, and is now partner at rEnergy Partners. We talk about the advantages of being able to invest from outside the corporate architecture, the unit's plans to raise a fund north of $200m to invest in cleantech startups, and their plans to bring in multiple LPs. The post rEnergy Partners: Charting a new course as a spun-out cleantech investor appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

Pilot projects between corporates and startups are a dime a dozen, just about any large corporate can do one. The problem, according to my guest today, is after the pilot – why is it that so many startups' solutions don't end up scaling within a corporate post-pilot, and what can be done about it? The post Cencosud Ventures: Venture clienting should involve skin in the game appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

Investing in automotive is not what it used to be – it has gone far beyond just what makes the car itself better, but of course to the entire ecosystem and experience around them. The post BMW i Ventures: Carmakers must innovate to navigate rapid technology shift appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

If you happen to be a human being, chances are you need to eat in order to survive. Agriculture is as crucial an industry to the maintenance of modern society as any other – and with a growing population and threats from climate change, finding new ways to produce more food is more important than ever. So why is it that investment into innovative agricultural technology has been so weak in recent years relative to other sectors? The post Leaps by Bayer: Agtech investors look for zebras, not unicorns. appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

Investing in fintech is hard wherever you are, but what if where you are is known for its economic and political turbulence? My guest today is Sebastian Spena, the managing director of Galicia Ventures, the corporate VC unit of Argentinian financial services company Grupo Galicia. The post Argentina's turbulent economy is a forge for fintech founders appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

The past year has been a big one for fintech startups. The high interest rate environment we've been under is slowly easing, along with the uncertainties stemming from having to wait for the outcome of the election in the US. The huge amounts of capital that have been parked on the sidelines are now looking to be deployed, and momentum is returning to the fintech space. The post Looking ahead at fintech's comeback appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

For every dollar that is invested in semiconductors, around $3 of economic activity is thought to be generated downstream – and in this case, downstream means absolutely anything technology-related. Just about piece of tech equipment you can buy today will rely in some way on a semi-conductor. The post We are in another iPhone Cambrian explosion for the chips industry appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

Latin America has always been fertile ground for fintech innovation and growth. Combining a young, tech-savvy population and a relative under-penetration of financial services you may see in other developed markets, there is plenty of opportunity for startups to feast on. The post Torq hopes to replicate Brazil's fintech success across LatAm appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

Nightlife has changed in recent years. It's not just the macro-effects of the pandemic – with higher costs of living and young people having less disposable income – but their preferences are also evolving. The post Best Nights VC wants people to meet in real life again appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

We've got a bit of a different episode again this week – Fernando sits down with GCV's editor-in-chief Maija Palmer, who asks him some questions about a recent report he wrote for GCV's Global Energy Council on the topic of getting first-of-a-kind cleantech technologies and projects of the ground. The post How to get first-of-a-kind cleantech projects off the ground appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

At the beginning of the year, I spoke to Bill Taranto, president of the MSD Global Health Innovation Fund about what he expected over the course of the year in the healthcare space. He had predicted that M&As would make a moderate comeback and more liquidity would be coming into the market from private equity firms, and that we would see a wave of consolidations taking shape as smaller “point solutions” get integrated into larger platforms. The post M&A and liquidity making a slower comeback in healthcare, but CVCs are stepping up to the plate appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

The past year has not been the most active for the Brazilian CVC market. High interest rates, lack of sufficient liquidity, and decreased dealflow, among other things, have all slowed it down relative to past years. But that is not true across the board. Some funds, like, L4 Venture Builder – the single-LP fund backed by Brazil's main stock exchange, B3 – have been investing a lot since it officially launched early in 2023. The post While others are cautious in a slower Brazilian market, L4 wants to be greedy appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

To fix things in the human body, you have to see them. This is what Olympus does. The legendary Japanese camera-maker, which in recent years divested its camera business and went full-tilt into medical devices, retains its core strength of optics and doubling down in its application to medicine. The post How Olympus Innovation Ventures is looking into the human body appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

With Lotte Group's expansion into biotech, it wanted its CVC, Lotte Ventures, to set up a new office in the world's largest biotech innovation ecosystem, the US, with a new – 3-person team in the Bay Area. But going into a new market is never a walk in the park. The post Opening a new CVC office in the US is not easy – here's how Lotte Ventures is doing it appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

The group of smaller and medium-sized investors has been growing, and their value has never been clearer to founders and co-investors. They tend not to seek M&As, neutralising a concern that some startups have about having corporates on their cap table, while still bringing the advantage of corporate connections. They often place an even heavier emphasis on the health of the investment syndicate, as they may be in a worse position than larger funds if things fall through, and they often opt, for example, for observer seats over board seats. All in all, they are team players who can still open very important doors. The post The US healthcare system has a huge resource shortage. Here's how small and medium-sized investors can help plug the gap. appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

If you have a pet, you will no doubt have come across one of Mars Petcare's brands – Pedigree, Whiskas, Iams, Royal Canin, and many others – it is the biggest company in a global petcare market which, depending on what figures you look at, stood at around $250bn last year and is en-route to nearly half a trillion over the next decade. The post Petcare will be a half-trillion-dollar market in the next decade, and its not just treats and toys appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

Today I'm talking to my colleague Angela Logan, news and production editor at GCV. Angela recently had a very interesting interview with Nichola Bates, head of global accelerators and innovation programmes at Boeing (which you can read here) in which Bates spoke about what it's been like to be a woman in the corporate VC industry, how in the past there were times when she wasn't taken seriously, or been undervalued – an experience that many, many women can relate to in the professional context – and how she's trying to run the unit she leads differently, and hopefully in a way that also disrupts the wider corporate culture. The post Radical change is needed to fix CVC's gender problem. Here are some ideas. appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

My guest today is Alejandro Solé, chief investment officer of TechEnergy Ventures, the CVC unit for the energy transition division of Tecpetrol, an energy company that is part of Italian-Argentine industrial conglomerate Techint group, which has under its umbrella companies in areas like steelmaking, engineering and construction, and energy. The post Investing in the hard assets of cleantech – a conversation with TechEnergy Ventures' Alejandro Solé appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

Investment is no longer the exclusive domain of investors. Increasingly sophisticated tools are coming on the market that are giving everyone access to investment capabilities that used to be confined to institutions and financial professionals. My guest today is Alokik Advani, managing partner of Fidelity International Strategic Ventures – or FISV – the CVC unit of asset manager Fidelity International. The post Making investing for everyone – a conversation with FISV's Alokik Advani appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

My guest today is Murat Arcan, managing director of Sabanci Climate Ventures, the CVC unit of Sabanci Climate Technologies, the international energy arm of one of Turkey's largest conglomerates. The post Sabanci wants to invest $200m into renewables technology appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

As companies are increasingly looking for faster innovation cycles and increased collaboration with startups, but don't always want the risk associated with direct investment, venture clienting has grown massively in popularity in recent years. The post Venture clienting as an entry point for more risk-averse corporates appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

Paradoxical though it may seem that an industry as extractive in nature as mining would be so important to making the world more sustainable, that's exactly the case. Partly that's because of the need to reduce its own impact – bringing down its emissions and reducing its waste – but also because most other energy transition technologies rely on metals that need to be mined. The post Can mining be at the forefront of the energy transition? A conversation with Vale Ventures' Bruno Arcadier appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

Historically, Latin American corporates, have been risk averse, wanting control, often family-owned, and that has been a barrier to innovation, but that is changing now, and they are more open to doing things in a new way, if for no other reason that it's imperative to not being out-competed. The post LatAm is hungrier for venture service providers – a conversation with Innova 360's Laura Chicurel appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

The “typical” accelerator model as we know it – a cohort of young startups that go through some sort of curriculum and hopefully convince investors to back them at the end of it – sometimes offers mixed results. Founders may well find that the conversation they have at the end is an investor telling them to call them back when they have more revenue. The post Should accelerators chase revenue instead of investment? appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

The US healthcare market is a big, complicated one. It's fragmented, it's large, with long sales and feedback cycles, making it difficult to innovate and bring about change at scale, especially that which the venture model would be patient enough for. The post Innovating in an intractable healthcare system appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

Last September, I had the pleasure on this show of speaking to Mike Smeed, managing director of InMotion Ventures, the VC unit of Jaguar Land Rover, when he had just recently completed his first year on the job, which was also his first year as a CVC at all. Now, I'm happy to have him back on to talk about what he has learned, and how the team has applied those lessons, in Year 2. The post A year of learning at InMotion Ventures – Mike Smeed returns appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

Payments, payments, payments. In a world with a diminishing reliance on cash, payment technology is quite literally making the economy go round. But obviously, it's not always as easy as tapping a credit card. Today I speak to David Rolf, head of Visa Ventures, about the difficulties, and the opportunities out there, when it comes to letting people pay each other as quickly and easily as possible. The post The future of payments – a chat with Visa's David Rolf appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

The world of sports has been seeing some really dramatic shifts in recent years, including huge changes in how sports are consumed – less via the big networks and more via mobile platforms, for example – and that's having big implications across the space, opening up opportunities for startups and investors alike. The post The Next Wave Webinar: Investing in the changing world of sports appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

Universities, by their very nature, have always been strong centres of innovation. Scientific discoveries are routinely made in university research labs – but spinning those discoveries out into an operational business comes with numerous hurdles. Academics who go on to found companies based on their research have not just a steep learning curve to adapt to the new commercial environment, but also a wider shift in their mindset. The lab, after all, is a much different place than the market. The post The transition from academic to entrepreneur appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

Just because you can grow very quickly, doesn't necessarily mean you should. That's the argument that Rob Bier, managing partner of Trellis Partners and 6:30 Partners, makes against the concept of “blitzscaling”, the hypergrowth philosophy popularised by Reid Hoffman. In his new book, called Smooth Scaling, as well as in a recent op-ed for Global Corporate Venturing, Bier argues that growing at all costs may work for a few startups, but for the majority, following the move fast and break things with loads of money in your pocket approach can have deeply detrimental effects. The post Slower and steadier wins the race – Rob Bier's case against blitzscaling appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

Financial services permeate every other industry, and is a crucial part of everyone's lives – whether you're talking about payments, wealth management, or anything else, fintech touches it all. Today I'm joined by Hugo Bongers, partner at Motive Ventures, who by his own admission “lives and breathes” fintech. Formerly the head of ABN Amro Ventures, he has a great overview of the space from both the corporate VC and financial VC sides. The post Let's give everyone more control over their finances – A conversation with Hugo Bongers appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

Fred Schonenberg is the founder of VentureFuel, a New York-based advisory firm focused on bringing together startups and large organisations, mainly corporates including the likes of Coca-Cola, ABInBev, The Hershey Company, Comcast and more, to efficiently create commercial partnerships between them. The post How to get startups and corporates to fit together – a conversation with VentureFuel's Fred Schonenberg appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

One of the biggest hurdles to getting technology from universities out into the market has been that of intellectual property – who does this technology belong to and who can benefit from it? Traditionally, many universities have been loath to part with their IP rights, which is a death knell for any investment a potential spinout may be hoping for. Investors want to know that the company they're investing in owns the very thing that gives it value. The post Universities take a more investor-friendly approach to IP appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

Jeppe Hoier is a long-time venture investor with experience in financial VCs, corporate VCs and on his own as an angel investor, based in Copenhagen, Denmark. A former partner at Maersk Growth, the CVC arm of Danish logistics giant Maersk, Hoier talks about how he was initially sceptical of going into a corporate VC, having been initially dissuaded by the reputation that CVCs had at the time, but how he has since been convinced of the benefits a corporate can bring. The post A CVC is like an organ transplant, the body would be wrong to fight it – A conversation with Jeppe Hoier appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

We're going back into the vault this week! They say that the only constant in life, and business, is change – so how do you manage it effectively? That's why last year I spoke with Jonny Crowe, a lawyer by training whose long career has been tied together by one central theme: executing and managing transformation. This is something he's done both as a member of the C-Suite within the structure of an organisation, or in an advisory capacity, for many companies including Cinch, BCA Marketplace, Naspers and Axel Springer, to name just a few. The post How to effectively manage change and transformation (re-broadcast) appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

For a while now, there has been a clear trend, for example, of hospital functions like patient monitoring, diagnostics, and other treatments being moved closer to the patients, even into their homes, which frees up space within hospitals, which of course, even before covid, have been dealing with huge capacity constraints. Many hospitals are operating at capacities in the high 90s and have a lot of trouble finding enough beds, enough appointments, or enough staff, for a number of reasons, but a big one is the fact that the processes within hospitals need to be overhauled and streamlined for higher efficiency. The post The Next Wave Webinar: What does the hospital of the future look like? appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

The way we buy things has been changing. Supercharged by the pandemic, the digital and physical sides of the retail experience continue to merge, data analytics continues to play an increasingly large role in how companies target and sell their products, and the consumer journey is, hopefully, getting easier and easier. The post Why Cencosud Ventures loves contrarian thinking appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

Today I speak with two people who know a lot about getting stuff from A to B– Rose Chen, head of innovation investments and partnerships at supply chain and distribution company Wesco, and Hector Shibata, who has for over half a decade led AC Ventures, the CVC unit of coca cola bottler Arca Continental. The post Investing in a strong supply chain appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

With valuations down from where they were a couple of years ago, the exit horizons that investors had in mind when they made their original investment ended up being further away than they thought. The IPOs are still scarce, and M&As are still too few and far between, but investors still want exits. The post A booming market for secondaries appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

There are very few corporates out there that have two CVC funds, Toyota is one of them. Not only does it have an early-stage fund in Toyota Ventures, but also a growth stage unit in Woven Capital – which was previously investing on behalf of , as its name suggests, Woven by Toyota, the automaker's next-generation mobility business, but has more recently expanded its scope to being the growth investment arm for Toyota as a whole. The post From automobiles to mobility – how Woven Capital is helping Toyota evolve appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

For years now, people – myself included – have been waiting for the advent, in earnest, of plant-based meats. Everyone loves a barbeque, but not the meat industry's effect on the environment, our health, or the treatment of animals themselves. Alternatives have been coming to the shelf for years now, but the same problems persist – the taste is not quite the same as real meat, and the price is far too high to really compete. The post We should temper our expectations for alternate meat, says Grey Silo Ventures appeared first on CVC Unplugged.

The story of the past year or so has been artificial intelligence and, in particular, generative artificial intelligence, or gen AI. Doesn't matter what sector you're in, or what countries you look at, everyone is trying to apply gen AI to their business, and investors are seeing a gold mine. The post Corporates underpin over half of all Gen AI investment appeared first on CVC Unplugged.