Global Venturing Review Podcast

Gonzalo Galindo: Cemex Ventures

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Gonzalo Galindo is the head of Cemex Ventures, the corporate venturing unit of construction materials company Cemex.

Having been at the helm of the CVC since its inception in 2017, Gonzalo talks about how the challenges within the construction sector – such as supply chain issues and sustainability – have evolved over the past nearly six years. We also talk about its recent investment in 3D printing company COBOD and why it was interested in a novel energy storage company like Energy Vault.

We discuss Cemex Ventures’ recently announced LP investment in the newly formed investment fund Zacua Ventures – which Cemex is backing alongside a number of other industry incumbents to invest in initiatives relevant to all of them – and how the construction startup competition it runs with other major construction companies shines a spotlight on fledgling innovators.

“Funky Chunk” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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Hector Shibata: AC Ventures

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Hector Shibata is the head of AC Ventures, the corporate venturing unit of beverage distributor Arca Continental.

In addition to a deep dive into AC Ventures’ strategy, Hector talks about how the pandemic put a number of the firm’s focus sectors like retail-tech and logistics in a position of strength going into the coming economic turmoil and why startups sometimes don’t want to partner with CVCs, thinking there will be strings attached.

He also talks about how putting together a CVC team is like building a special forces squad and how the younger population of Latin America is a major driver for investment in the region, though certain endemic business attitudes – like keeping companies in the family – are proving to be speed bumps.

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“Funky Chunk” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Carlos Kokron: Qualcomm Ventures

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Carlos Kokron is vice-president, managing director and head of Americas investments for Qualcomm Ventures, the corporate venturing unit of Qualcomm, the developer of semiconductors and wireless technology.

In this episode of the Global Venturing Review, Carlos talks about why series A, B and C are the perfect goldilocks zone for Qualcomm Ventures, why it’s becoming increasingly important to invest in technologies at the edge rather than just at the cloud to enable low-latency-dependent applications, and how Qualcomm Ventures new extended reality-focused fund is set to open up a host of cool new possibilities.

As one of the early venture capitalists (Corporate or otherwise) in Brazil, Carlos also has really great insight into the Latin American venture scene, and he talks about the state of the region and what’s needed to foster more corporate investment there. He also talks about how it’s a really good time to invest right now despite the current cloudy economic conditions.

“Funky Chunk” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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Greg Larkin: Punks & Pinstripes

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Every corporate venturing and corporate innovation programme is about to face what Greg Larkin likes to call the “f*** you, pay me meeting”. This is the meeting in which the team has to prove their value to the bottom line of the parent business — or they end up getting cut.

Larkin is a change management consultant, founder of Punks & Pinstripes, a network of transformation executives at Fortune 500 companies, and the author of This Might Get Me Fired, a book about intrapreneurship.

Larkin isn’t against innovation and venturing — but he wants it to be framed more seriously. This isn’t something fluffy and optional. This is about solving the serious technology talent retention problems that large incumbent companies have for example. Larkin recently examined where laid-off Tesla workers are going. It isn’t to any of the big automakers, and that is a problem.

In this interview with Global Venture Review, Larkin sets out his case for where companies are going wrong on innovation and venturing — and how to fix it.

“Funky Chunk” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0