Corporate Venture Capital’s Role in Innovation Part 4: Setting Up a CVC Organization
In the previous post I introduced a five-dimensional framework to employ while setting up a corporate venture group and discussed in detail two of its dimensions: strategy and people. The corporation must establish a long-term strategy for its venture group. As part of this strategy it must create a set of objectives, formulate an investment […]
Corporate Venture Capital’s Role in Innovation Part 3: Setting Up a CVC Organization
In the first part of the series on corporate venture capital I explored how the disruption of institutional VCs (IVCs) and the imperative for corporations to innovate provide an opportunity to corporate VCs (CVCs) to make their mark in the startup ecosystem and be viewed as viable and valuable financing sources to private companies. In […]
Measuring the Performance of Corporate Innovation Initiatives
The business models of large corporations are being disrupted faster than ever before, e.g., Netflix is disrupting the video distribution industry, while new lucrative markets being created by innovative startups, e.g., Uber, Nest, and SpaceX. As a result of these developments, corporations are starting to realize they will need to re-invent their disruptive innovation model. […]
Silicon Valley’s Role in the Re-Invention of the Disruptive Corporate Innovation Model
Corporations from industries as diverse as agriculture, manufacturing, logistics retail and financial services are being disrupted at an unprecedented rate by a variety of innovations: technological, e.g., cloud computing and big data analytics, startup creation, e.g., lean startup, investment model, e.g., crowd-funding, business model, e.g., offering software as a service, marketing, e.g., social engagement, product […]
Enterprise Headlines and Highlights, 2013-01-04
Highlights from the world of Enterprise Software and Solutions over the past two months (or so): Salesforce.com had a strong Q3. NetSuite had a strong Q3. HP did not. Workday had its IPO. It’s doing well, with a market cap just over $8.5 billion and a constrant stream of innovation. Lots of IT failures recently, […]
Facebook IPO Lessons
Like most people, I had the opportunity to review Facebook’s IPO filing yesterday and admit that, like Apple’s recent earnings announcement, this is pretty damn impressive. Here are a couple of lessons worth reinforcing: 1) People’s view of what is normal and acceptable in emergent online activities is constantly evolving. What Facebook deserves a lot […]
The End of the Beginning
Today Get Satisfaction announced that we have successfully closed a new round of financing, led by Bruce Cleveland at InterWest Partners. It’s a validating moment for all the hard work that the team has undertaken, particularly in the last year and a half. Despite the fundraising process being a major MBO for me over the […]
Back to the Future: Are We in Another Tech Bubble?
I’ve read several blogs and articles over the last few weeks debating the current tech environment and comparing (or arguing why not to compare) today to 1999. I guess it’s not surprise that there’s concern over this topic though, considering the soaring valuations that some of the current crop of social start ups has garnered […]
The Ascent of Q&A as Community
Q&A communities have become grown in popularity in recent years with consumer and business offerings being developed at a blistering pace and established players emerging with their own offerings. The Q&A interaction model has existed for years, as long as search engines have been around and this is not a coincidence. Q&A takes advantage of […]
Keeping Score: Exit Activity for Venture Backed Companies in 2010
Not surprisingly in 2008 and 2009 exit activity for venture backed tech companies was very slow. Last year that activity seemed to have picked up, mirroring the overall improved business environment. I try to keep track of most of the…
