CVC Unplugged

The way we buy things has been changing. Supercharged by the pandemic, the digital and physical sides of the retail experience continue to merge, data analytics continues to play an increasingly large role in how companies target and sell their products, and the consumer journey is, hopefully, getting easier and easier. The post Why Cencosud Ventures loves contrarian thinking appeared first on CVC...

Today I speak with two people who know a lot about getting stuff from A to B– Rose Chen, head of innovation investments and partnerships at supply chain and distribution company Wesco, and Hector Shibata, who has for over half a decade led AC Ventures, the CVC unit of coca cola bottler Arca Continental. The post Investing in a strong supply chain appeared first on CVC Unplugged .

With valuations down from where they were a couple of years ago, the exit horizons that investors had in mind when they made their original investment ended up being further away than they thought. The IPOs are still scarce, and M&As are still too few and far between, but investors still want exits. The post A booming market for secondaries appeared first on CVC Unplugged .

There are very few corporates out there that have two CVC funds, Toyota is one of them. Not only does it have an early-stage fund in Toyota Ventures, but also a growth stage unit in Woven Capital – which was previously investing on behalf of , as its name suggests, Woven by Toyota, the automaker’s next-generation mobility business, but has more recently expanded its scope to being the growth inves...

For years now, people – myself included – have been waiting for the advent, in earnest, of plant-based meats. Everyone loves a barbeque, but not the meat industry’s effect on the environment, our health, or the treatment of animals themselves. Alternatives have been coming to the shelf for years now, but the same problems persist – the taste is not quite the same as real meat, and the price is far...

The story of the past year or so has been artificial intelligence and, in particular, generative artificial intelligence, or gen AI. Doesn’t matter what sector you’re in, or what countries you look at, everyone is trying to apply gen AI to their business, and investors are seeing a gold mine. The post Corporates underpin over half of all Gen AI investment appeared first on CVC Unplugged .

Sopra Steria Ventures, the CVC unit of French IT giant Sopra Steria, has been around for half a decade. After a few years, however, the investment programme was not really yielding any tangible results. The structure was not quite there, the strategy was not quite aligned with the corporate leadership wanted, and the focus was too skewed towards M&A rather than venture itself. A change was nee...

Today’s show is a bit different – instead of a normal conversation, we’re bringing you GCV’s most recent edition of the Next Wave – our monthly webinar series that features panel discussions on emerging technologies and CVC best practices. The post The Next Wave Webinar: Venture building – how to avoid the common failures appeared first on CVC Unplugged .

Despite their products being so ubiquitous anywhere you live in the world, and an integral part of so much of what we eat, the B2B egg, dairy and food sectors are among the least digitised out there. What this has opened up is a lot of space for startups to make a big impact. Schreiber Foods is one of the largest dairy products producers in the world, supplying stores, restaurants and other food p...

One of the most exciting up and coming venture ecosystems in Latin America is that of Chile. In an already innovative and fast growing business environment, corporate VCs are sprouting up left and right across the country, and funds are increasing in size. One such CVC, which announced the launch of its $100m fund late last year, is CMPC, the pulp and paper company that is one of the largest compa...

Kerry Carter is an entrepreneur, executive and investor in the area of sports technology, who also happens to be a former professional athlete, having played in the National Football League and the Canadian Football League before making a jump to the world of business and currently sits as chief operating officer of Atavus, a sportstech company focused on the mechanics of tackling. The post Kerry...

Most people think that the Covid-19 pandemic has a supercharging effect on digital health – while that’s certainly true of things like telehealth services, is it necessarily the case for the rest of the sector? Maybe not, according to today’s guest – but independent of Covid, digital health is a booming area. Joining me today is Bill Taranto, President of MSD Global Health Innovation Fund – as it’...

The story of the past year or so, of course, has been an explosion in demand for all things artificial intelligence. Every company in the world is thinking about how their business, processes, or products can be improved with the addition of AI across all levels, and all are looking for applications relevant to them. The post Jung Lee & T.A. McCann: Pioneer Square Labs appeared first on CVC Un...

This is a podcast that focuses primarily on the world of corporate venture capital, but as we look at corporate innovation more widely, is CVC the best tool available to bring innovation into a larger organisation? According to this week’s guest, Alex Mahr, co-founder and managing partner of venture-building firm Stryber, the answer is no, or at least not necessarily. Having worked in corporate in...

If you’re a company in the industrial sector, you’re going to have a lot of waste. Industrial processes are massively resource-intensive, whether it’s water or other raw materials, and what you get out the other side is not just the finished product itself, but literally tons of waste byproduct that needs somewhere to go. What is becoming increasingly clear is that in and around that waste, is a l...

Many CVCs, because of their parents’ core business, tend to have, for lack of a better term, high-minded or particularly noble missions – whether that’s saving the planet from climate change, or humanity from disease, or anything else that may in some way contribute to the saving of the world – but then you have some investor who just want you to have a grand old time with the people you care abou...

Innovation is moving fast across most sectors, but in healthcare we are really seeing how tantalisingly close we are to solving some of our most enduring health problems, and we’re advancing at a fast clip. We talk about the leaps and bounds that we’ve come over the past decade in treating and finding cures for notorious ailments, how patient selection is an often overlooked but crucial part of th...

The construction sector continues to face a number of massive challenges – skill and labour shortages, lack of standardisation, regulatory hurdles, and a massive carbon footprint, to name just a few. Zacua Ventures, the construction-tech focused VC firm launched last year by three alumni of construction CVC units, aims to alleviate them. The post Juan Niet: Zacua Ventures appeared first on CVC Unp...

For Crispin Leick, managing director of EnBW New Ventures, a passion for energy technology came early in life, and was supercharged later on when he became a father and saw his time horizons change from years to generations ahead. As head of energy generation and utility company EnBW’s corporate venturing unit, Leick and his team focus on three main areas where they can have the biggest impact, na...

Today’s show is a bit different – instead of a normal conversation, we’re bringing you GCV’s most recent edition of the Next Wave – our monthly webinar series that features panel discussions on emerging technologies and CVC best practices. The post The Next Wave: Functional foods – Investors are hungry for more appeared first on CVC Unplugged .

What precisely is the role of a third-party CVC fund managers in the venture ecosystems of emerging economies? According to Richard Zeiger, general partner at Brazil’s MSW Capital, it’s an important role to educate and set the standard. The post Richard Zeiger: MSW Capital appeared first on CVC Unplugged .

We have plenty of knowledge hidden all over the place, with potential for transformational change on important problems, but without the ability to commercialise and spread it out, we don’t get to benefit from it. My guest today is Owen Thompson, co-founder and CEO of Cambridge Future Tech, a deep tech venture builder situated – as its name suggests – in one of the most bustling technology and ide...

IPOs are back! With the recent listings of companies like chip manufacturer ARM and delivery app Instacart, we are seeing the resurgence of the public markets after around two years of being dormant. The post Are IPOs back? appeared first on CVC Unplugged .

Cars have been on their way to essentially becoming rolling computers for quite some time now. They are better connected, increasingly electrified, and packed with features to make the driver’s life easier. Mike Smeed, managing director of Jaguar LandRover’s (JLR) venturing unit, InMotion Ventures, has been in the CVC business for only one year, but given that automotive OEMs are already designing...

My guest today is Cassio Spina, founder and lead partner of a new advisory and venture management firm Alya Ventures, which launched earlier this year. The post Cassio Spina: Alya Ventures appeared first on CVC Unplugged .