For Dealflow.eu’s first Multicorporate Matchmaking Event, we invited Medtronic, Galp and Vestas Ventures to meet 30 outstanding startups in the fields of Health and Energy and discover potential partnerships and investment opportunities.
The Multicorporate Matchmaking Event gives innovators the privilege to meet leading European companies, opening the door to larger deals. The participating startups can establish strategic partnerships to validate their innovations and accelerate market penetration.
For the corporates, these events bring the opportunity to discover groundbreaking solutions developed by innovators that were validated by the European Commission, increasing the companies’ visibility and reputation as highly innovative.
Following the first edition, we asked the representatives of the three corporates to share with us their valuable feedback, including revealing to innovators why they should participate in this kind of initiative.
The Corporates
The added value for Corporates
Big corporations are always on the lookout for the best start-ups, especially in early-stage. As Mathias and Jared explain, Vestas Ventures saw this event as a great opportunity to meet interesting startups, get a feeling of what they do, and explore how they might help enable Vestas’ vision to become the global leader in sustainability solutions. Similarly, GALP aimed at meeting entrepreneurs with great ideas to find solutions or technologies that can help them in their business and can support them in the transition towards a renewable energy company.
A straightforward way to exclusive partnerships
For Yves, Dealflow.eu Matchmaking events means the opportunity for a startup to touch base directly with R&D+I from a world leading company, focusing more on technology rather than in business and marketing strategy, establishing an open dialogue, and getting recommendations.
Tips to win a big Corporate
> Consider corporates (and not only VC) as a doorway to get funding, if a pilot with a corporate is successful, in most cases a big corporation will be willing to invest.
> Have an open, inquisitive mind that both stays with tough questions, and simultaneously knows when to cut their losses.
> Be internally driven and know when to sprint and when to keep the right marathon pace.
> Communicate simply and succinctly, with clarity and passion.
> Have a great core team in place.
> Have a rock solid, differentiated technology.
> Reading suggestions: The Lean Startup, Life Entrepreneurship and anything by Paul Graham, especially How to Do What You Love and Relentless Resourceful.
Be aware of the challenges
Besides the cultural difference already pointed out by Manuel, sometimes it is difficult to find the right person to speak to in the big corporation and it is his job to put the startup in contact with somebody that will understand what they are doing and the potential for collaboration.
Yves highlights that as many startups in these events are early-stage technologies, they are facing some critical decisions as nearly everything is decided on that stage. According to him, the dialogue with corporate companies should start very early because the most critical decisions impacting the venture have been already taken or will be taken soon, and this will pave the road to a successful venture or to a failing venture. Even if they are not ready for equity investment, they can benefit from the experience and have open discussions with corporate company representatives.
Mathias and Jared recognize that decision-making has more layers in a large corporate than in a classic Venture Capital setup, which can be frustrating. But they can also be the natural first customer, having an operational setup, scale and global footprint to speed up commercialization of the product(s). Money can be raised from many sources. Nevertheless, the combination of customer base, range of partners and suppliers, global footprint, and relevant industry experience that comes through genuine corporate partnership is impossible to replicate through purely financial investors.
An optimistic future
Article published by EurA AG.
More about Dealflow.eu
Supported by the European Commission, Dealflow.eu discovers and supports the most promising EU-funded innovators and connects them with relevant investors and corporates. The initiative was launched to help groundbreaking innovations secure the funding needed for their future commercialisation by offering them tailored support and matchmaking services.
To learn more about Dealflow.eu, visit https://dealflow.eu/
Disclaimer: Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
