Other professions such as accountancy and engineering created standards and accreditation bodies after reaching a certain maturity level. CVC is approaching that now.
“Corporate VC is no longer optional,” Nicolas Sauvage, president of TDK Ventures, told the audience at the GCVI Summit in Monterey. Investment in startups has become an essential way for corporations to stay in touch with a rapidly evolving technological landscape — and corporate investors are present in more startup funding rounds than ever before.
But this rise to prominence comes with a requirement by corporate investors to level up, said Sauvage. Other professions created standards and accreditation bodies once they reached a certain size and spread, he said.
“Accounting companies created CPA [certified public accountant] licencing, engineering companies brought in standards. Corporate VC is approaching that same stage now.”
Sauvage also called on the venturing industry to have better training schemes and to provide more evidence of the benefits that startup investment can bring to companies.
“Let’s prove the benefits, let’s open up the data,” he said.
The impact that startup investment has on corporations can be difficult to demonstrate. Global Corporate Venturing has data to show that startups that are backed by corporations tend to have lower rates of bankruptcy and higher rates of achieving an exit. But similar data for the corporate side has been harder to gather.
While some organisations such as Citi Ventures have verified the financial benefit their portfolio companies have brought to the parent group, many other corporate venture teams struggle to quantify their impact.
Sauvage is throwing down the gauntlet for corporate venture teams to do more to demonstrate their value to companies.
Summaries of all the panel sessions at the GCVI Summit are available here.
