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What is corporate venturing perchance you ask? One definition is an “internal VC arm of a corporate” – although this hides some major differences with VC per se.

In London Fintech Podcast episode 48 I am delighted to welcome Ben Luckett MD of Aviva Ventures to dive into corporate venturing.

For the company doing it corporate venturing is a classic route to get exposed to innovation in a marketplace that’s moving faster than a large corporate can easily replicate itself. As an example The Economist wrote in this context about Intel’s venturing which has over 20yrs invested in more than 1,300 companies in 56 countries. Set against that the HBR points out that the median lifetime of a corporate venturing project is one year – so not all of them fly in the sky.

For the startup/scaleup corporate venturing it is a source of growth capital but it can, at best, feel not like a type of venture capital funds (which can come with plenty of winces as I see daily talking to Fintechs) but as a steadier, less profit-orientated perhaps, source of funds.

On the show we discuss all this and more: Continue reading →