Comment from Mark Fenwick, associate professor, faculty of law, Kyushu University, and Erik Vermeulen, head of governance, Philips Lighting, and professor of business and financial law, Tilburg University
What should large corporations do to accelerate innovation and remain relevant? Or, stated slightly differently, what should such corporations do to avoid being disrupted by younger, more agile and innovative startups? A conventional answer to these questions has been to engage in corporate venturing.
In recent years, a great deal has been written on corporate venturing or corporate venture capital, which is usually understood as a corporation making an investment in external startups either “directly” – off the balance sheet…