Ida Brun, venture investments and partnerships director at Maersk Growth, is one of our top 50 Rising Stars in corporate venturing for 2025.
Ida Brun had been working at the Danish shipping giant Maersk for nearly 11 years before she moved to Maersk Growth, its CVC arm. In that time, she worked within commercial and business development roles, across areas like ocean transport, energy and supply chain management.
This breadth of experience proved invaluable when Brun decided to transition to Maersk Growth. As she explains, “it allowed me to really see the business from a more holistic standpoint, and then also the many different challenges and opportunities that it presented.”
The unit is now on its third fund, investing exclusively in climate tech, including green fuels, energy efficiency, electrification and carbon capture. It mainly invests at the series A to B stages, and holds more than 40 portfolio companies.
“Once you identify a good solution to a business challenge, if you involve the right stakeholders and you have the right solution at hand, things can really move quickly”
Brun found that CVC required drawing on new strengths, including a diplomatic ability to balance the needs of the corporate and the portfolio companies. But she found the work satisfying from the energy with which a CVC can bring results to the core business when it identifies a good venturing opportunity.
“Once you had identified a good solution to a business challenge, if you had involved the right stakeholders and you had the right solution at hand, things could really move quickly.”
Her advice to those entering corporate venturing is to be intentional and focus efforts on the meaningful investments that will “move the needle” and generate value for the corporate and represent financially sound opportunities. She also says it is important to take the time to build up a network of other investors and internal industry experts to collaborate with. Not just on deal flow, but on professional development and due diligence on how solutions could be deployed and integrated into existing processes and assets.
“I think one of my key learnings is that despite the different industries and different companies [doing corporate venturing], it’s surprising to see just how many similar challenges we see ourselves facing, and I think there’s a lot to be learned from each other,” she says.
See the full list of Rising Stars 2025 here.
