Building Innovation Special Vehicles
Spin-offing innovation. Is this the new trend?
Some corporates are building dedicated companies to manage innovation activities (or part of them). This phenomena has been adopted since a while for investment activities that, in most of the cases, are managed through dedicated vehicles (CVCs, Corporate Venture Funds). Now we are seeing a new trend for companies spin-offing to separate vehicles the innovation activities.
Why that?
- Create an “open innovation factory” for the group, able to build and launch new products and services, mostly through the collaboration of startups.
- More easily measure the results of innovation. Having a company 100% dedicated on innovation allows to better track the outcomes of innovation activities.
- Gain flexibility. Having a separate vehicle allows to more easily engage with startups both for procurement and investments/acquisitions.
An interesting example here is Acea, Italian multiutility with €3B+ in revenue active in the energy distribution and management of water and waste). Last year they launched Acea Innovation, an indipendent company created to be the innovation factory of the group.
In the chat below we deep dive into the model (and reasons behind) with Massimiliano (Max) Garri, Acea’s Chief Innovation & Information Officer and CEO of Acea Innovation.