Corporate Venturing Network Netherlands celebrates 10 years of existence with a book

Corporate VenturingSome 12 years ago, Bax & Company together with pioneers like Robert Kirschbaum of DSM launched a small informal club of corporate senior managers in charge of creating and growing completely new business activities for their corporations. Since the first meeting in 2001, the club grew by members inviting their peers, and the small but growing club continued to meet a couple of times per year to exchange insights and share ideas. In 2004 the job titles of most members had changed to Corporate Venturing ‘something’, so when the club was formally created it was baptised as CVNN. Last March, the ten years of formal existence was commemorated by the publication of a book on Corporate Venturing written by Corinne Kuiper and Fred Van Ommen, both active members of the network for a long time.

The book showcases Corporate Venturing practice at some fifteen CVNN members, while also adding the more academic or theoretical context. Corporate Venturing may not have delivered the vast growth of new business activities that some corporates sought when adopting it; it has however exposed large corporations to highly valuable insights derived from dealing with fast growing start-up companies. Those that run their corporate venturing activities well report substantial impact on achieving their longer term strategic objectives. Less successful CV initiatives have definitely suffered from boardroom myopia, as investment cycles and lab spin-out growth curves exceed the normal timeframe that an executive needs to show results in.

Bax & Company is presently in dialogue with Corporate Venturing practitioners from others parts of Europe, to explore if the concept of CVNN can be repeated in regions with a sufficiently high density of Corporate Venturing activities outside of the Benelux. Out vision: creating a network across Europe of Corporate Venturing ‘chapters’ which are connected into the same online & offline network.

The book offers great insights into how Corporate Venturing can work. It can be purchased on Amazon following this link.

If you are interested about our Corporate Venturing services, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Recent Posts
Smart Specialisation Platform logo