Latest Episodes
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The Next Wave Webinar: Investing in the changing world of sports
Listen nowThe 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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The transition from academic to entrepreneur
Listen nowUniversities, 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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Slower and steadier wins the race – Rob Bier’s case against blitzscaling
Listen nowJust 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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Let’s give everyone more control over their finances – A conversation with Hugo Bongers
Listen nowFinancial 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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How to get startups and corporates to fit together – a conversation with VentureFuel’s Fred Schonenberg
Listen nowFred 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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Universities take a more investor-friendly approach to IP
Listen nowOne of the biggest hurdles to getting technology from universities out into the market has been that of intellectual property – who does this technology belong to and who can benefit from it? Traditionally, many universities have been loath to part with their IP rights, which is a death knell for any investment a potential spinout may be hoping for. Investors want to know that the company they’re investing in owns the very thing that gives it value.
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A CVC is like an organ transplant, the body would be wrong to fight it – A conversation with Jeppe Hoier
Listen nowJeppe Hoier is a long-time venture investor with experience in financial VCs, corporate VCs and on his own as an angel investor, based in Copenhagen, Denmark. A former partner at Maersk Growth, the CVC arm of Danish logistics giant Maersk, Hoier talks about how he was initially sceptical of going into a corporate VC, having been initially dissuaded by the reputation that CVCs had at the time, but how he has since been convinced of the benefits a corporate can bring.
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How to effectively manage change and transformation (re-broadcast)
Listen nowWe’re going back into the vault this week! They say that the only constant in life, and business, is change – so how do you manage it effectively? That’s why last year I spoke with Jonny Crowe, a lawyer by training whose long career has been tied together by one central theme: executing and managing transformation. This is something he’s done both as a member of the C-Suite within the structure of an organisation, or in an advisory capacity, for many companies including Cinch, BCA Marketplace, Naspers and Axel Springer, to name just a few.
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The Next Wave Webinar: What does the hospital of the future look like?
Listen nowFor a while now, there has been a clear trend, for example, of hospital functions like patient monitoring, diagnostics, and other treatments being moved closer to the patients, even into their homes, which frees up space within hospitals, which of course, even before covid, have been dealing with huge capacity constraints. Many hospitals are operating at capacities in the high 90s and have a lot of trouble finding enough beds, enough appointments, or enough staff, for a number of reasons, but a big one is the fact that the processes within hospitals need to be overhauled and streamlined for higher efficiency.
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Why Cencosud Ventures loves contrarian thinking
Listen nowThe 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.