Corporate venturing: Strategies and success factors

Abstract

Corporate venturing is a practice whereby a company sets up a separate organizational unit, the corporate venturing unit (CVU), to invest in new technological and business opportunities arising within or outside the boundaries of the firm, for long-term strategic and/or short-term financial purposes. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the practice of corporate venturing, based on a review of the existing corporate venturing literature and in-depth interviews with the corporate venturing managers of twelve European multinational firms from various manufacturing industries. Three research questions are addressed: 1) what are the motives for companies to engage in corporate venturing; 2) which are the success factors of corporate venturing; and 3) does corporate venturing generate (economic) value for firms?