Open Innovation Outlook 2024

In December 2023, in Paris, during the closed-door session of the annual Corporate Startup Stars Awards – organized by Mind the Bridge and the International Chamber of Commerce – we had the opportunity to engage with the heads of innovation from several of the world’s top 100 most innovative corporates.
This proved to be an invaluable opportunity to share insights and firsthand assess which open innovation tools have demonstrated success thus far, along with future plans of these corporates. In this brief report, we present a summary of the key outcomes from our discussions, which include the findings of a structured survey circulated at the end of the session. Some trends are clearly visible.

Innovation models are constantly evolving, adopting a more “hybrid” and “sophisticated” approach.
• Corporate Accelerators are experiencing a downturn, while Venture Builders are on the rise, albeit with some concerns.
• The Venture Client model maintains its status as the favorite tool for engaging startups.
• Antennas, CVC and Intrapreneurship are also widely adopted.

Open Innovation persists as a global play, despite current geopolitical instability.
• Silicon Valley and Israel remain the places to be.
• Additional ecosystems such as the US East Coast, Europe, China, Australia, South Korea, and the MENA region, are emerging and gaining prominence.

Budget cuts in innovation are anticipated.
• A growing number of companies are expected to reduce their innovation spending in 2024
• The top 30th percentile of the world’s leading companies plans to increase investments despite challenging economic conditions.

There is a heightened focus on tracking impact and measuring results in Open Innovation.
• The majority of companies employ a multidimensional measurement approach for Open Innovation KPIs.
• Emphasis is shifting towards measuring new business creation rather than cost savings.
• How to track strategic impact and cultural transformation are the big elephants in the (Open Innovation) room.

GenAI and Deep Tech dominate the conversation.