Podcast

  • Thumbnail for LatAm is hungrier for venture service providers – a conversation with Innova 360’s Laura Chicurel

    LatAm is hungrier for venture service providers – a conversation with Innova 360’s Laura Chicurel

    Historically, Latin American corporates, have been risk averse, wanting control, often family-owned, and that has been a barrier to innovation, but that is changing now, and they are more open to doing things in a new way, if for no other reason that it’s imperative to not being out-competed.

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  • Thumbnail for Should accelerators chase revenue instead of investment?

    Should accelerators chase revenue instead of investment?

    The “typical” accelerator model as we know it – a cohort of young startups that go through some sort of curriculum and hopefully convince investors to back them at the end of it – sometimes offers mixed results. Founders may well find that the conversation they have at the end is an investor telling them to call them back when they have more revenue.

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  • Thumbnail for Innovating in an intractable healthcare system

    Innovating in an intractable healthcare system

    The US healthcare market is a big, complicated one. It’s fragmented, it’s large, with long sales and feedback cycles, making it difficult to innovate and bring about change at scale, especially that which the venture model would be patient enough for.

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  • Thumbnail for A year of learning at InMotion Ventures – Mike Smeed returns

    A year of learning at InMotion Ventures – Mike Smeed returns

    Last September, I had the pleasure on this show of speaking to Mike Smeed, managing director of InMotion Ventures, the VC unit of Jaguar Land Rover, when he had just recently completed his first year on the job, which was also his first year as a CVC at all. Now, I’m happy to have him back on to talk about what he has learned, and how the team has applied those lessons, in Year 2.

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  • Thumbnail for The future of payments – a chat with Visa’s David Rolf

    The future of payments – a chat with Visa’s David Rolf

    Payments, payments, payments. In a world with a diminishing reliance on cash, payment technology is quite literally making the economy go round. But obviously, it’s not always as easy as tapping a credit card. Today I speak to David Rolf, head of Visa Ventures, about the difficulties, and the opportunities out there, when it comes to letting people pay each other as quickly and easily as possible.

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  • Thumbnail for The Next Wave Webinar: Investing in the changing world of sports

    The Next Wave Webinar: Investing in the changing world of sports

    The world of sports has been seeing some really dramatic shifts in recent years, including huge changes in how sports are consumed – less via the big networks and more via mobile platforms, for example – and that’s having big implications across the space, opening up opportunities for startups and investors alike.

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  • Thumbnail for The transition from academic to entrepreneur

    The transition from academic to entrepreneur

    Universities, by their very nature, have always been strong centres of innovation. Scientific discoveries are routinely made in university research labs – but spinning those discoveries out into an operational business comes with numerous hurdles. Academics who go on to found companies based on their research have not just a steep learning curve to adapt to the new commercial environment, but also a wider shift in their mindset. The lab, after all, is a much different place than the market.

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  • Thumbnail for Slower and steadier wins the race – Rob Bier’s case against blitzscaling

    Slower and steadier wins the race – Rob Bier’s case against blitzscaling

    Just because you can grow very quickly, doesn’t necessarily mean you should. That’s the argument that Rob Bier, managing partner of Trellis Partners and 6:30 Partners, makes against the concept of “blitzscaling”, the hypergrowth philosophy popularised by Reid Hoffman. In his new book, called Smooth Scaling, as well as in a recent op-ed for Global Corporate Venturing, Bier argues that growing at all costs may work for a few startups, but for the majority, following the move fast and break things with loads of money in your pocket approach can have deeply detrimental effects.

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  • Thumbnail for Let’s give everyone more control over their finances – A conversation with Hugo Bongers

    Let’s give everyone more control over their finances – A conversation with Hugo Bongers

    Financial services permeate every other industry, and is a crucial part of everyone’s lives – whether you’re talking about payments, wealth management, or anything else, fintech touches it all. Today I’m joined by Hugo Bongers, partner at Motive Ventures, who by his own admission “lives and breathes” fintech. Formerly the head of ABN Amro Ventures, he has a great overview of the space from both the corporate VC and financial VC sides.

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  • Thumbnail for How to get startups and corporates to fit together – a conversation with VentureFuel’s Fred Schonenberg

    How to get startups and corporates to fit together – a conversation with VentureFuel’s Fred Schonenberg

    Fred Schonenberg is the founder of VentureFuel, a New York-based advisory firm focused on bringing together startups and large organisations, mainly corporates including the likes of Coca-Cola, ABInBev, The Hershey Company, Comcast and more, to efficiently create commercial partnerships between them.

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