Ep. 21 - Why (corporate) accelerators fail

Tune in to the latest episode of our "Open Innovation Talks" series! This time, our Chairman, Alberto Onetti, interviews Kyle Basler-Reeder, Global Open Innovation Lead at ExxonMobil. Kyle shares his unique approach to fostering external innovation within a large organization. He explains his go-to questions for anyone looking to embrace open innovation: How much time and budget do you have? What about IP and TRL? Do you have an implementation plan? What is the projected value at scale? What are the chances of success? Top tips include aiming high, involving Business Units from day one, starting with ready units, and streamlining processes. He also emphasizes the importance of internal landscaping, as solutions often exist within the organization. Learn how leading Open Innovation is about leading cultural change in this new episode!

Procurement is often perceived as highly boring and bureaucratic. But it is a massive opportunity. Public sector spending, in the UK only, is about 400 billion pounds a year. In Europe we are talking about trillions of euros.Nowadays the public sector is facing more challenges than ever before (after Covid, climate emergence, child and social care, security, …) and it has to do it with tight finances. Public organizations have to deliver better, cheaper, and quicker outcomes.How does the public sector spend money? In the UK 21% of tenders have a single bidder. Why? It is really hard to engage with the public sector, particularly if we refer to innovation.Rather than prescribing, public organizations should be much more open to the market with the problems they want to solve. They should lower the barriers to entry, bring innovation in and work with diverse suppliers (startups, scaleups, academic span-outs, corporate open innovation depts, …). Public Procurement is not about being first, being an inventor, rather be an intelligent client. If you try to do something from scratch, it always costs more. On the contrary, you can derisk by bringing innovation from outside.It Given the budget they have, the Public Sector can really help shaping the innovation ecosystems.That’s the reason why the Innovation Procurement Empowerment Centre (IPEC) – a Connected Places Catapult project - introduced a Special Award as part of Startup Ecosystem Stars Awards 2024 aimed to recognize and celebrate the most innovative initiatives within the public sector.This and more in this Mind the Chat with Rikesh Shah - Head of IPE and former Head of Open Innovation at Transport for London (TFL), interviewed by our Chairman Alberto Onetti. 

Dive into the world of corporate venture capital (CVC) in our latest podcast episode! Join us as we explore the differences between CVCs and traditional VCs with Johann Boukhors, Managing Director at ENGIE New Ventures, the CVC arm of the French multinational utility company.Hosted by our Chairman Alberto Onetti, this insightful interview delves into the unique perspective of CVCs. Johann shares invaluable insights, highlighting that while both CVCs and traditional VCs aim to support startup success, they pursue different intermediate objectives. "Our ambition should be to gather strategic market intelligence and form partnerships with impactful outcomes," he emphasizes.Discover ENGIE Ventures' evolution in strategy, their preference for direct investments, and their sweet spot in Series A funding. Tune in to gain a deeper understanding of the dynamic world of corporate venture capital!

CampX was launched back in 2020. Labelled as Accelerator, it is actually a Venture Client platform, or, as Helene Niklasson, VP Innovation Ecosystems & Partnership and Head of Camp X - Volvo Group, calls it, a “testing tool” or “validation machine” for onboarding solutions from startups.In this podcast, she delves deeper into the CampX model alongside our Chairman, Alberto Onetti.And here are the main highlights:- Selected startups in very focused areas enter into a POV (Proof of Value). If it is successful, solutions are integrated in technology platforms or services and scaled internally. Since the launch, 80 projects have been validated and about 10-15% of them are currently in the integration phase. The internal target is to run about 50 ongoing projects across the 4 locations (Gothenburg, Lyon, Greensboro, and Bangalore) where Volvo Group has its R&D sites (CampX is under the CTO office).- In 2022 a Venture Builder was added, and in 2023 an Incubator. Both are deployed only at the Gothenburg R&D facility, but if they prove successful, the CampX team is hoping to roll it out to other sites.- The Venture Builder, led by Karin Falck, is the landing point for internal ideas and IP that are vetted through subsequent iterations. Thus far 4 projects have been developed, 2 deployed internally and 2 span- out.- The Incubator programme - led by Robert Jan van Vugt - gives some 30 startups access to the company’s testing labs, workshops and prototyping space for two years. It’s focused on seed/early stage startups that would otherwise be years away from being mature enough for a joint project with Volvo Group.Volvo Group is among the Top100 world's "Corporate Startup Stars" awarded in Paris last December.

Championing Entrepreneurship for Positive Impact! 📈Celebrating his recent award as the Corporate Startup Star 2023, the interview with Anthony Virapin, Worldwide Leader, Entrepreneurship for Positive Impact at Microsoft, summarizes the main pillars of what the company is uniquely doing in the promotion of #entrepreneurship and #startup collaboration.In this #MindtheChat with our CEO Marco Marinucci, we cover first some of the highlights of Microsoft - OpenAI partnership. We then delve deeper in the Entrepreneurship for Positive Impact program Anthony and his team have been running: metrics, some success stories and its future development.

Innovation is a cosmetic word for making change happen."Are you in or out? That's the ultimate question. You can't be half pregnant".Sometimes, we use the term "innovation" too loosely, labeling things as the "innovation pipeline" when it's just a development pipeline.Benji Coetzee, Chief Strategy & Development Officer at KPN, knows this all too well. She oversees KPN's innovation activities, including CVC (KPN Ventures) and Venture Client (Liaison Management), and understands that innovation teams are not decision-makers but rather the impartial voice of reason. They provide the tools for change but, in the end, are not accountable for it. However, if they can't convince executives to believe in the narrative, nothing will happen.It's all or nothing.And while it's almost impossible to measure the absolute impact of innovation (“There are so many dividends you can extract over time and are very difficult to measure: Product, Business, Time, Churn, Margins, Culture, Brand Value, ... "), KPIs are still important, even the "stupid" ones.So let's not call it "innovation," let's call it "change projects”.Join Benji as she delves deeper into this with Alberto Onetti in this new episode!

Join us as we explore the future of technology in our latest episode. Here, MTB Chairman Alberto Onetti sits down with Nikhil Malhotra, Global Head of Makers Lab at Tech Mahindra, to discuss what we can expect in 2025, bypassing the late predictions for 2024.Nikhil shares his insights on several key trends:The decline of the GenAI hype.The necessity for AI sustainability, recognizing its current unsustainability.Emerging quantum production use cases, particularly in cybersecurity, cryptography, and optimization.Anticipated shifts in biomedicine, driven by the customization of human genome sequencing and advancements in nanorobotics.The rise of metaverse industrial applications, with a noted decline in consumer interest.A call to align technology and innovation with nature, advocating for a symbiotic relationship between technology and the environment.Additionally, Nikhil sheds light on Project Indus, detailing India's endeavor to develop its own large language model (LLM) from scratch, a challenge inspired by Sam Altman during his recent visit to India.Tune in to discover more about these exciting developments and the Indian perspective on cutting-edge technology! #MTBCSS

Alberto Onetti, Chairman of Mind the Bridge, sits down with Agustin Moro, Director of Innovation Services at Telefónica, for a deep dive into the dynamic world of open innovation. In this insightful conversation, they discuss Telefónica's journey in open innovation, tracing back to the launch of Telefónica Open Innovation in 2006 and the subsequent development of initiatives like Wayra and Telefónica Ventures.“We are obsessed with showing the results of our Innovation activities both outside and inside Telefónica.” says Agustin Moro, Director of Innovation Services at Telefónica. Thus far they have produced over 700 million in revenue and 200 million in cost savings.Here are the 5 tips of Agustin to Open Innovation managers:Set clear goals and expectations and socialize/communicate them internallyBe relevantBe consistent and keep up also when results are not comingDon’t take shortcutsBe ready to hack the system since “doing Open Innovation is not just investing. It is changing the corporate culture”.

Why (corporate) accelerators failIt is not a secret that most corporate (and not only corporate) accelerators do fail. Among the reasons (based on a recent study) being very transactional and taking equity. Intel Ignite, whose goal is to work with the best disruptors of the world (with a focus on early-stage deep tech startups), works differently. The acceleration program is built on a co-founder-as-a-service model. They act as co-founders without taking equity. “Startups are time-bound entities (they evolve very quickly), founders are not.” says Tzahi (Zack) Weisfeld. Intel Ignite aims at creating relationships with top notch founders.To make it work, you need:The right people running (serial entrepreneurs)The right corporate sponsorship (Ignite is supported by Greg Lavender, the EVP & Chief Technology Officer)“The atomic unit we work with is not the startup. It is the founder”And, at the end, it pays back to Intel in terms of strategic returns and cultural change.

It doesn’t happen everyday to have a fireside chat with a (former) European Commissioner and a (future) Prime Minister. She is Mariya Gabriel, currently Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Bulgaria. She has been awarded as the” Startup Ecosystem Star for 2023” for her visionary work as European Commissioner that has sown the seeds of innovation across Europe. Specifically the commitment of Mariya Gabriel was instrumental in adopting the New European Innovation Agenda (NEIA) in July 2022 (the prior one was more than 10 years old) that is the EU blueprint of 25 concrete actions for harnessing innovation for economic and societal benefit. Out of these, the flagship initiative of the Regional innovation valleys is designed to uplift regions with lower innovation performance with a €170 million commitment.“Talent, Innovation, Diversity are always at the centre of my actions. With partnerships and collaboration we can achieve much more than expected. Expected by others, not us. Because we are ambitious.”