Global Corporate Venturing Rising Stars Awards 2016: #15 Doris Blasel

Doris Blasel, a managing partner at Siemens Global Innovation Partners, heads up its VC fund-of-funds (FoF) investment team. She manages VC pension money allocation and some external clients’ money too. She is not directly involved in direct corporate venture capital (CVC) deals, but is probably one of the most well connected VC FoF managers in North America, Europe and Asia.

Based in the offices of Siemens Venture Capital (SVC) in Germany, Blasel and SVC’s goal is to identify and finance young companies across the globe during their startup phase and to provide established companies with extra capital for their growth plans during the expansion phase. Through SVC’s portfolio companies, it offers Siemens’ internal customers new technological solutions and taps new markets. The focus is on growth segments in the energy, industry and healthcare markets.

The portfolio includes further private equity and venture capital activities. In the context of its private equity and venture capital advisory service, Blasel’s team offers non-US customers, such as the Siemens Pension Fund, professional consulting in private equity and venture capital asset allocation. In January 2009, SVC launched its first FoF, Siemens Global Innovation Partners I, which was offered to non-Siemens and non-US investors.

Between 2001 and 2006, Blasel was the responsible investment manager for the CVC-related VC FoF investments on behalf of SVC. These FoF commitments support SVC’s direct investment activities and built a network of contacts in the main VC cluster areas, such as the US, Europe, Israel and China.

Blasel said she was attracted to CVC by the opportunity to be exposed to the latest technology innovation outside of Siemens and to initiate contacts between a large organisation such as Siemens and small startups.

Blasel said: “These contacts resulted typically in win-win situations for both sides, because Siemens has very deep and broad in-house technology and market expertise. The startups were able to present their new solutions and get valuable feedback. In some cases, they would win Siemens as an investor. This activity helped our organisation to better assess investment opportunities and watch outside innovation from very early on.”

Of her achievements, Blasel said: “The greatest success always has been when, after a few meetings, the business unit expert, my direct investment partner colleagues and the startups are working together without my involvement. Needless to mention, the financially successful FoF commitments were the ultimate goal.”

Her biggest challenge, though, was to get hold of business unit colleagues for the first meeting – because time was the most scarce resource.

Blasel’s big ambition for the future is: “To invest in the most successful VC funds to generate a strong return for our Siemens Pension Fund. Since 2007, when the CVC FoF investment activity was finished, we started to commit to a portfolio of VC funds on behalf of our Siemens Pension Fund and some external institutional investors – thereby benefiting from the experience of the past six years and the technology expertise within SVC and Siemens. In addition, we can be a value-add limited partner for our VC funds and a good lead generator for our direct investment partner colleagues. I have always enjoyed the win-win situations that can be generated in the CVC business.”

Broadly speaking about the CVC industry, Blasel believes CVC programmes should have clearly defined financial and strategic goals and that teams should be incentivised as much as possible to retain them for a longer time in their positions, provided the partners are generating successes.

She noted: “A combination of internal and external direct investment partners has worked well for our organisation. It ensures a strong internal network, which is essential to find the best promoter for a new technology investments. It also helps to install best practices from the private VC industry.”