Winning Together - a guide to successful corporate-startup collaboration

How can we keep at the forefront of innovation and new market trends in the digital age? Can we solve key business problems in a quicker and cheaper way? How do we foster a more entrepreneurial mindset among employees? 

These are questions most corporate executives and innovation directors have to solve. 

Corporate innovation strategies are changing considerably. Corporates are waking up to the fact that startups are disrupting whole industries by introducing new technologies, innovative services and disruptive business models. Uber, Airbnb, Spotify are just a few examples. The most important thing to remember is that young digital companies are not necessarily a threat - the right collaboration can present enormous opportunities where both win.

"Instead of thinking ‘some incumbents are gonna lose, some startups are gonna win’, startups should be seen as potential partners. Partners to create more value for your company, more value for the consumer, and for the whole industry." 

Giuseppe Zocco, co–founder of Index Ventures

To help corporates reap the benefits of collaboration with startups, we've produced a guide together with Founders Intelligence and the Startup Europe Partnership. As we show, companies of various sizes and sectors may benefit from collaboration with young, innovative firms.

Specifically, the guide aims to:

• help executives and innovation managers understand what value working with startups can bring to their organisation;
• provide them with a three–step approach and framework to evaluate and select suitable programmes to engage with startups;
• empower those who want to champion startup engagement inside their company with case studies and stories that clearly illustrate the transformative benefits of collaborations.

'Winning together - A guide to successful corporate-startup collaboration' will be launched today at the Founders Forum CEO Breakfast, to 90 CEOs leading corporates in Europe and across the world. 

A second launch will follow on June 24th at Nesta, where a selection of executives, corporate innovation managers and startup programme managers will discuss corporate-startup collaborations with serial entrepreneurs and startups. Highlights, content and a video of the sessions will be available in the following weeks.

More blog posts will follow, with the goal of exploring more in deep benefits, startup programmes features, and learnings on corporate-startup collaborations.

Stay tuned!