Global Corporate Venturing Rising Stars Awards 2017: James McClurg

The intense nature of venture investing means it can be hard to switch off even when nominally on holiday. It is, therefore, perhaps understandable that James McClurg, head of Investments at UK-listed media company Sky, would feel the need to list as his hobbies “travelling to new and exciting places, which, to be clear, are not just tech hubs”.

Sky, an entertainment and communications business in 22 million homes across UK, Ireland, Germany, Austria and Italy, was under offer at an enterprise value of £18.5bn ($22bn) from shareholder 21st Century Fox in mid-December.

The £10.75 per share offer was more than 50% up on the 700p offer made in 2010 by Fox’s predecessor, News Corp, and reflected the growth of the company and ability to tap into future opportunities, such as through venturing.

Commenting before Fox’s takeover approach was made, McClurg said: “I was hired to join the founding team [of the Startup Investments & Partnerships unit] in 2013 after Sky made a few opportunistic investments.

“Following those initial deals Sky wanted to systematically identify, invest and partner startups across the US and Europe; creating partnerships to drive innovation, new revenue opportunities and costs efficiencies.

“The ability to truly add value to and work with the startup following the deal, through the business relationship with Sky, was the main attraction in joining the team.

“Also the opportunity to work with really interesting people, both from the startup and from the business, both of which are at the top of their game and have huge experience / insights – these combined perspectives have led me to develop and learn a lot.

“As a relatively new unit we have had some good early success over the last three to four years, including five exits to date, two in particular to note are: 1Mainstream, acquired in October 2015 by Cisco, and Elemental, acquired the same month for $269m by Amazon.”

McClurg said Sky had investments in 19 startups in the US and Europe and two boutique funds. He picked out as a successful deal its investment in a virtual reality startup, Jaunt, in 2013, which led Sky to set up its own virtual reality studio and launch a VR app as well as striking a commercial deal with the startup.

He added: “Our investment in and work with online video startups led us to create our own social-first channel in partnership with a startup, Whistle Sports, and to also complete commercial deals to carry online video on Sky’s core platform.”

McClurg added that Sky had rolled out a new native advertising format following its investment in Sharethrough and also became an international partner for Roku, white-labelling its set-top box and distributing Sky’s contract-free proposition, NowTV, across Europe on the box.

However, such active dealmaking requires McClurg and the team under Emma Lloyd to be “keeping a constant focus on identifying and driving big and strategic opportunities for Sky.

“Due to the highly integrated nature of our business we receive a wide-range of inbounds, we need to spend the majority of our time on what could be transformational opportunities (either today or in the future) which will truly benefit Sky and the startups we work with – and be wary to not get caught up in lots of tactical or short-term conversations, especially given the small size of our team.”

As to what else would help the industry, McClurg said: “It would be great to have more connections made among the more junior people in CVC, those below the lead of the unit, so as to increase dealflow sharing, success and challenge stories and building relationships for the next wave of corporate venture unit leads – and of course to have some fun.”

He and Global Corporate Venturing are preparing the first such networking drinks in March to complement those already held by GCV in Silicon Valley every few months.

But for those travelling through either location, both are definitely tech hubs rather than pure holiday destinations.