Eight things we learned from the GCV Symposium

Every GCV conference is a mix of familiar themes and surprises and often serves to articulate subtle shifts that have been bubbling up under the surface in the profession. The Symposium in London was no exception.  

First, the familiar:  

• The “yin and yang” of CVC remains a central challenge; practitioners must balance financial discipline with strategic relevance to survive. Neither is sufficient in isolation, and the yin and yang balance goes beyond the individual CVC unit into the ways that CVCs and VCs interact on co-investments. As Nicolas Sauvage, president of TDK Ventures put it in his opening remarks: ”The future is not VCs versus CVCs. The future is better syndicates serving entrepreneurs better.”
• Secondly, venture clienting has transitioned from a niche experiment to a core capability, with units using it as an “operational due diligence” tool to test startups before writing equity cheques. Terry Doyle told the Symposium audience his team was “highly adaptable to each particular investment, and that means sometimes venture clienting.” Putting it crudely, he said, they were agnostic about whether a cheque for a startup was written before or after there was a commercial relationship. In about 30% of cases, the commercial relationship came first.  
• Finally, there is a definitive shift from “bits to atoms”, with investors prioritising deep tech and materials science to solve “high-stakes” global problems in energy, health, and transport. 

Then there were the signs of subtle but critical shifts.  

• Longevity in CVC has been a perennial topic at conferences, not surprising in a profession that can be subject to sudden death syndrome. Many of the recent conversations on this have made the point that longevity is closely tied to organisational “stickiness”. The more the unit is embedded across multiple business departments, rather than relying on a single C-suite champion, the more likely it is to survive for the long term. David Dowling, counsel at law firm Ropes and Gray, put it succinctly: “I think successful CVCs touch all aspects of the business. If the CVC has buy-in throughout the business, with different sales teams, business development, it’s easier for the CVC to survive role transitions rather than just being the pet project of a CEO that might get sacked after five years.”  
• AI, naturally, was never far from discussions, but now leaders are viewing it as an underlying fabric for business. Much like it now feels quaint for a company to talk about their “internet strategy”, in a few years we’ll stop talking about AI strategy and just go back to discussing supply chain and customer acquisition strategy, said Steven Kan, director at Alphabet’s Other Bets unit. That said, CVC units themselves are still working out how to use AI in their own day-to-day operations. A round table discussion indicated that many are using it for scouting, and while this is saving time, it isn’t necessarily uncovering any previously hidden startup gems. 

Some of the more surprising notes included: 

• The staggering valuation arbitrage that India offers for investors. Priyanka Chopra, CEO and managing partner of IIMA Ventures pointed out that while the country produces world-class deep tech IP, it attracts 80 times less risk capital than the US, offering a “ground floor” entry for global corporates. 
• The rise of the secondary market is notable, with 22% of units now using it to manage liquidity and transitions. Many units are still learning, however, how to structure startup agreements from day one in a way that allows use for secondary sales as part of an orderly plan, rather than a distress sale.   
• One of the innovative ideas was using CVC funding to subsidise early offtake agreements with startups, which often can be offputtingly expensive for early customers. This is something that Markus Gatterwe, VC investment lead at Holcim MAQER Ventures said his team was doing to bypass internal budget friction and accelerate the adoption of startup technologies. 

All of this and more is summarised in our recap of the GCV Symposium here, where you can watch video replays and read briefings capturing the key learnings from each session.

This editor’s note was first published in GCV’s Blueprint newsletter, which tracks corporate venture news, key deals, new funds best practice and jobs.

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