Global corporate venture capital

Abstract

Capturing innovation is not only a competitive advantage, but also a necessity for corpora-tions around the world. In the past, innovative endeavors were pursued by research and de-velopment (R&D) departments. However, the gleaming days of R&D of being the innova-tion center of a company are fading. Nowadays innovation takes place all over the world and usually can be found within privately held startups. For incumbents to spot innovation outside their corporation¿s fence, corporate venture cap-ital (CVC) is gaining importance as an effective investment method. Formerly, corporations that used CVC as a vehicle to innovation were exclusively based in the United States. How-ever, every year the number of European and Asian companies investing into young entre-preneurs in different countries in the world is raising rapidly. This raises the question of how corporations, that are from culturally distinct countries, con-duct corporate venture capital programs, what are the significant alterations in corporate venture capital and what are the similarities in terms of unit organization and investment activity. Through a survey of 34 corporate venture units from Asia, Europe and North Amer-ica, those questions will be answered. This thesis contributes to the discourse on corporate venture capital by providing a better understanding how this investment method is used in different countries in the world.