Specific staffing choices and high investment levels can prolong the lifespan of corporate venture capital units.
At any given time of the day, somewhere on this planet, a C-suite executive is losing sleep over one simple question: “Will our business be disrupted before I even know it?”
No industry is safe from disruption now. With each start-up wave turning up the heat, plenty of incumbents seem to have reached one conclusion: If you can’t beat them, engage them. A popular means of engagement has been to create a corporate venture capital (CVC) unit. Before 2004, fewer than 200 such units existed worldwide. By the end of 2015, their number had grown to more than 1,500.
