GVR Podcast: Bill Reichert, Pegasus Tech Ventures

Are you a corporate that wants to make venture investments, but you don’t know where to start?

Bill Reichert is partner at Pegasus Tech Ventures, a VC-as-a-service firm that helps companies invest in startups.

This is a model that has been on an upwards trajectory in recent years – as different corporates find themselves at different stages along their innovation journey and sometimes they need outside help, so they reach out to firms like Pegasus and others to help them navigate the venture capital ecosystem. 

Reichert talks about the VCaaS model, its advantages and why some corporates choose to go that route as opposed to building their own units, as well as why the model is gaining so much popularity. 

He also talks at length about the history of corporate venture capital and how CVC as a service is the latest iteration of it – calling it CVC 4.0. Corporations, Reichert says, recognise that they need to innovate to survive, driving them to look for sources of innovation, and just because a corporate might already have a CVC doesn’t mean that they don’t partner with firms like Pegasus anyways. 

With a multi-sector array of partners, Reichert explains the challenges involved in formulating a strategy for each of them based on their individual needs, and how sometimes they need a lot of help getting the prerequisite groundwork and culture of innovation in place to enter the venture pool.