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New forms of collaboration are helping businesses drive change
In this third edition of of our deep dive into what innovation means, our commissioning editor, Matt Hempstead, looks at the mechanisms through which businesses are innovating, underscoring the importance of new forms of collaboration.
Picture the scene. You’re an executive at a large incumbent business. You know that the energy transition and emerging regulation are going to make you do things differently – and that this will require the development of new technologies outside your comfort zone. Perhaps you’re a fashion house that suddenly needs to understand blockchain for supply chain traceability, or a pharmaceutical company that needs to harness generative AI to avoid falling behind in drug discovery. How do you go about driving the innovation you need? What mechanisms and levers do you reach for?
You could, of course, go to your in-house R&D department. But often in today’s world, there are a range of competing solutions to the same problem and running many internal pilots simultaneously would be challenging. And sometimes the new capabilities a company needs to thrive in a disrupted world are so different from its traditional wheelhouse that assembling a team in-house would be expensive and challenging. Plus, there’s a good chance your starting point would be far behind the bleeding-edge of science.
Instead, organisations are exploring new ways to bring innovation in from the outside, bridging the gap between research, startups, and corporates. And, rather than simply hoovering up startups through acquisition, many organisations are thinking creatively about how this is done, with the Springwise Library providing many illustrative examples of these mechanisms.
Accelerators
Accelerator programmes support startups through mentorship, education and sometimes financing and access to workspaces. They have their roots in Silicon Valley, through programmes like Y Combinator, but, beginning in the 2010s, corporates have begun to move into this space too, offering their own programmes. For example, a recent case study from the Springwise Library is NoorNation. This Egyptian startup has developed the ‘LifeBox’, which combines solar energy with water pumping and desalination in a self-contained, plug-and-play unit. The solution, which allows farmers to irrigate their crops without relying on increasingly volatile and expensive water and energy supplies, received support through PepsiCo’s Greenhouse Accelerator Programme.
Other programmes are going beyond traditional accelerator models. Newlab, whose Head of Startups and Venture, Garrett Winther, Springwise spoke to earlier this year, provides young science-based businesses not only with high-risk capital, but also access to infrastructure, workspaces, industry and government partnerships, and specialist expertise. The venture platform’s partner corporations, including Ford, Verizon, and LG Electronics can meet a roster of Newlab-supported startups curated to their needs.
Corporate venture capital
invest directly in startups, usually taking minority stakes. Although in 2023 startup funding from corporates fell in proportion with the wider venture capital market, over the long term CVC has increased in significance, and corporations are also tending to invest in startups at an earlier stage of development. This approach has the benefit of enabling businesses to pool risk and support a wider range of promising solutions than would be feasible in-house.
A recent example from the Springwise Library is Rendesco, a startup that designs, installs, and maintains geothermal heat networks. Aviva Ventures, the corporate venture capital fund of global financial services firm Aviva PLC, participated in the startup’s recent £6 million fundraise.
Corporate-founded startups
Another model that Springwise has seen grow in popularity is corporations founding their own ‘startup’ businesses. Set up as separate entities, these often bring in outside capital in addition to the support of their parent company, and their business is typically closely adjacent to that of the main company.
The Future Is NEUTRAL, for example, is a pioneering company that breathes new life into old car bodies by recycling and reclaiming used metal, which is then funnelled back into the automotive production loop. The startup was founded by The Renault Group in partnership with outside investors.
Partnerships
Finally, collaboration on innovation does not only take place between big businesses and startups. Large organisations with complementary expertise can also partner with each other. For example, speciality materials and chemicals company Celanese recently partnered with Under Armour to create NEOLAST, a new stretch fibre that can replace hard-to-recycle elastane.
A key benefit of the Springwise Library is that it acts as a bridge between big business and the world of universities and startups. Become a member today to browse over 14,000 innovation case studies that could provide partnership opportunities.
