Venture Clienting

Internal innovation developments are often expensive and time-consuming. Venture clienting offers a fast and low-risk opportunity to bring external, innovative solutions and technologies into your organization.

With our services, we support companies in their efforts to collaborate with startups and tech champions by becoming an early customer and establishing a strong long-term relationship. With 100+ successful corporate-startup collaboration and venture clienting projects, Pioneers provides the necessary experience and know-how to be a strong partner for your venture clienting journey.

Benefits of venture clienting

Visible and measurable business impact

Fast and cost-effective access to innovation

Low-risk opportunity to test new solutions

Insights into market and technology trends

Fostering of innovation culture & mindset

Our Approach

1

VENTURE CLIENTING
STRATEGY

We facilitate the definition of a sound venture clienting strategy building upon the corporate strategy. Moreover, we ensure involvement of all relevant stakeholders within your organization.

2

VENTURE CLIENTING
SETUP

We help maximize the strategic and organizational impact of your venture clienting activities by establishing a new venture client unit. We set up an effective strategy, process, and team for independent operations.

3

VENTURE CLIENTING
EXECUTION

We support the execution of the entire venture clienting process or offer our services for a specific process stage. These include use case definition, global startup and scaleup scouting and guiding the adoption of the startup solution.

Our Services

STRATEGY

DEVELOPMENT

We help companies to conceptualize and anchor their venture clienting strategy and long-term goals.

ORGANIZATIONAL

SETUP

We develop the right organizational structure with a strong team and a systematic, end-to-end venture clienting process.

USE CASE

DEFINITION

We facilitate the definition of specific challenges and use cases and the development of suitable scouting criteria.

STARTUP

SCOUTING

We scout, engage and select the best and most suitable startups, scaleups and tech champions around the globe.

PILOT PROJECT

SUPPORT

We accompany business units in their efforts to co-develop and deliver a successful proof-of-concept.

COLLABORATION

SCALING

We support the adoption and scaling of the solution and facilitate a long-term collaboration.

Key Success Factors

STRATEGIC PRIORITY

Defining strategic purpose and securing management commitment creates strong legitimation for all your venture clienting activities. In doing so, a long-term vision should be defined and balanced with short-term objectives.

FAST LANE

Find the right setup and process that serve as a fast lane for startup collaborations. This includes close cooperation with relevant support units like procurement, legal, or IT.

BRIDGE BUILDING

There are fundamental differences in the functioning, speed, and mindset of startups and corporates. Thus, a major challenge is to create a mutual understanding and manage the gap proactively.

MOBILIZATION

Create strong links to and mobilize all business units to unveil a high number of relevant problems within your organization that build the starting point for all your venture clienting projects.

IMPACT MEASUREMENT

To prove the impact of startup collaborations, it is essential to set up a measurement system and monitor key KPIs for all venture clienting projects.

Client Voices

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bookingcom logo small
Wendy
van Leeuwen

Program Manager

" Pioneers are an ideal partner to support us in creating condensed, yet impactful programmes that will empower startups with the actionable plans and assistance they need to kickstart their further growth. "

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Franz Zöchbauer

Managing Director

" We are excited about the outcomes from our partnership with Pioneers. The joint project has been instrumental in unlocking future potential through collaboration and innovation with startups. Huge thanks to everyone at Pioneers for making this happen! "

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Rey Buckman

Airbus Bizlab

" The wide variety and quality of Pioneers scale-ups provided an accurate overview of global innovative trends: great value for us. "

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Overview of latest references

VERBUND X ACCELERATOR

The aim of the VXA program is to unite key industry players with innovative startups to initiate and realize strategic pilot projects. We approached the project by defining relevant search fields with Verbund and corporate partners and sourcing use cases from business units. Furthermore, we scouted later-stage startups and engaged with top startups. With the realization of a PoC phase, we developed and tested prototypes. Eventually, various long-term cooperations were established.

OUTCOMES

  • Identification of 100+ suitable startups globally in each batch
  • 10+ PoCs that resulted in long-term collaborations
  • Successful cross-company cooperation

B.BRAUN STARTUP COLLABORATION PROGRAM  

B.Braun intends to collaborate with external startups and scaleups to innovate its core business. We defined different use cases for scouting with all departments and set up individual calls with all units to detail the use cases. Through iterative scouting activities, we identified the top 20-30 startups per use case and organized exploratory and selection interviews. Finally, we initiated pilot projects with selected startups.

OUTCOMES

  • Scouting for 10+ departments simultaneously for 3 years
  • Definition of 30+ use cases and identification of top startups
  • Several pilot projects that resulted in long-term collaborations

GREEN TECHNOLOGIES SCOUTING  

Vattenfall green:field, Vattenfall’s open innovation vehicle, aims to support Vattenfall business units in their collaboration with startups. Therefore, we scouted and pre-evaluated startups and introduced remote calls with the top 10 startups. Next to the on-site moderation of meetings with the top 5 startups we conducted the PoC planning workshop with 3 selected startups and finally initiated and implemented the PoC projects.

OUTCOMES

  • Identification of 25+ suitable startups from all over Europe 
  • Successful PoCs with 3 startups
  • Discovery of new business models, products and services

Strong Footprint in Many Large Organizations

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Why Pioneers?

We combine a unique set of assets and skills. With background from both strategy consulting and years of experience in the startup scene, we are experts of both the corporate and startup world

STRATEGY-CONSULTING COMPETENCE

Our team has 10+ years of experience in developing and managing corporate strategies.

CORPORATE CHANGE
KNOW-HOW

We understand the barriers of creating an entrepreneurial company and guide a successful transformation.

EXPERTISE
IN EXECUTION

So far we supported 100+ intrapreneur teams, 20+ corporate ventures, and 100+ startup collaborations in their execution.

PIONEERS.CLIMATE

In the quest for carbon neutrality there is a large “climate gap”. We help develop sustainable offers to reduce companies’ carbon footprint.

STARTUP NETWORK

Since 2014 we work on startup collaborations and have built a large network for international scouting.

PIONEERS.TALENT

We have extensive expertise in recruiting talents for key positions in corporates, startups, and corporate ventures.

Ready to boost
innovation?

Contact us

Learn more about
our clients

References