n our own corporate news, it was announced at the end of last week that Global Corporate Venturing was teaming up with top advisory firms DLA Piper, Bell Mason Group, and Silicon Valley Bank on a Corporate Venture and Innovation Initiative. We could not be more excited about working with these top firms to help corporates better work together, and one of the most important areas of our focus will be attempting to help our clients grapple with the demands of tapping into innovation in a global world.
As many of our Asian readers go on holiday for Chinese New Year, it is a fitting time to celebrate the growing globalisation of the corporate venturing industry. The year of the Dragon has been a very exciting time to be working in corporate venturing, as all industries have begun to rapidly change with start-ups taking a growing share of innovation, and large corporations demonstrating a greater willingness to bridge the cultural divide to stay on top of changing technology. I think many of us are even more excited about the Year of the Snake.
Firstly in our own corporate news, it was announced at the end of last week that Global Corporate Venturing was teaming up with top advisory firms DLA Piper, Bell Mason Group, and Silicon Valley Bank on a Corporate Venture and Innovation Initiative. The full release can be read here. This innovation initiative is non-exclusive so it means Global Corporate Venturing will remain impartial to the industry and all service providers but will allow our data and public information to be used by our Initiative colleagues to “offer a portfolio of advisory services on best practices for G1000 corporations that are seeking to develop and implement innovation strategies to drive growth”.
One of the most important areas of GCV’s focus remains attempting to help the industry grapple with the demands of tapping into innovation in a global world and through this initiative we can hopefully do this by allowing our data and information to be used by the other members’ clients. This fits with the launch last month of our Services Directory of all providers specialising in corporate venturing, including the members of the initiative, so venturers can find the people who can help with their business and develop best practices.
This week corporate venturing also celebrates one of its biggest conferences, the IBF Corporate Venturing and Innovation Partnering conference, on Newport Beach, California, which I will be attending all this week, so please say hi. As can be seen from the agenda this is a truly global conference, with US, European, Asian and other international executives mingling to share insights.
Also in the news last week, was South Korean conglomerate Samsung’s chief strategy officer Young Sohn. The company has committed $100m to the Catalyst Fund for early-stage start-ups. Samsung has also set up a Strategy and Innovation centre in Menlo Park, California, to complement an accelerator on content run by David Eun in Palo Alto. Many interested in innovation have their eyes firmly focused on what Samsung will end up doing in this big Silicon Valley push.
Interestingly Sohn, is linked to the big financial and technology news of the week, businessman Michael Dell, private equity firm Silver Lake and US-based technology company Microsoft’s $24.4bn acquisition of US-based technology company Dell. Sohn was previously a senior advisor to Silver Lake, before taking on the strategy role at Samsung last year.
Needless to say the Dell deal is hugely significant in the technology world. It suggests private equity is back and one of its biggest darlings is the best known technology specialist. It also reflects management at some technology companies which have been underappreciated by public market investors, know they can make their companies compete in a truly global world. As the ancient Chinese proverb says:”may you live in interesting times”, and there are few more exciting places to be than working in corporate venturing and technology at the moment.
