Global Corporate Venturing Rising Stars Awards 2017: Christian Noske

One definition of a Global Corporate Venturing Rising Star is their speed of promotions and Christian Noske, partner at BMW i Ventures, the corporate venture capital unit of the eponymous Germany-based car maker, is off to a fast start.

Following a promotion in 2015 to investment principal at the car manufacturer’s venturing unit, and selection for last year’s GCV Rising Stars 2016 awards, Ulrich Quay, managing director of BMW i Ventures, said: “Christian is the right candidate for 2017’s awards. He has identified great deals and taken over board seats, for example Scoop and Rever, and can click with startups, investors and big corporations alike. Christian is also a great pleasure to work with.”

In July, BMW i Ventures made a strategic investment in Rever Moto, a US-based motorcycle-focused trip planner.

In May, US-based carpooling app developer Scoop Technologies raised $5.1m in a round featuring the corporate venturing subsidiaries of BMW and enterprise software producer Workday.

New to corporate venturing when he joined BMW four years ago, Noske, therefore, has found himself having a sizeable impact as part of BMW i Ventures’ internal, four-member investment committee.

Based in New York City still, Noske said he spent a lot of time on the west coast, where Rever and Scoop are based – in Colorado and California respectively – and i Ventures’ new headquarters in Mountain View, the town where search engine provider Google’s headquarters are also located.

It is perhaps an appropriate location for i Ventures to be given Google, through its Alphabet parent company, has spun off its self-driving project as a new company, Waymo, and through its corporate venturing units, GV and CapitalG, has sought institutional freedom from the parent providing the money.

And Google’s corporate venturing approach has been a model for BMW.

“A lot of corporate venturing units work in the same way and make the same mistakes. They all start by saying ‘we want to be very protective, we want to keep it close to the company’,” said Noske for his GCV RisingStar 2016 profile. “If you are coming from an industry, such as car manufacturing, that is an older industry, we have a tendency to set up corporate venturing units so they are not as dedicated as perhaps Google or Intel are.”

For this year’s award, Noske said his success was just this evolution. “I was part of the BMW i Ventures evolution from a first-generation CVC unit to a CVC unit with complete autonomy and institutional investor processes.

“With our new set-up we have the tools to play at the top of not only CVCs but the entire VC industry. My goal is to prove that CVC can be as financially successful as the top intuitional VCs and at the same time achieve strategic goals and drive value for the corporation.”

Studying economics and computer sciences at Stuttgart, Germany, Noske went on to business development roles before finding an interest in consumer product development at Germany-based industrials group Robert Bosch.

In addition to BMW i Ventures, Noske said he was an active angel investor and, when not working, liked hiking, cooking and beach volleyball. He drives fast enough at work.