The state of startup / corporate collaboration 2016

Cracking report from Imaginatik and MassChallenge. Its available to download from either site if you can find the page (registration required) but I’ve added the the-state-of-startupcorporate-collaboration-2016 (pdf). Key findings below:

1. INTERACTIONS MOVING EARLY STAGE

While most startup/corporate interactions used to begin at the negotiation table, corporations and startups increasingly recognize the benefits of earlier interactions. Corporations said that 67% now prefer working with startups at earlier stages, mainly “to explore new technologies and business models”.

2. INTERACTIONS WITH STARTUPS BECOMING “MISSION CRITICAL”

At an overwhelming 82%, corporations now view interactions with startups as “somewhat important” to “very important”, and 23% indicated that these interactions were “mission critical”. Innovation efforts, it seems, are no longer just nice-to-have programs within corporations.

3. CORPORATE INNOVATION MODELS ARE STILL IN THEIR INFANCY

While 86% of large organizations view innovation as crucial to their future, most of their current attempts to work with startups to further that objective are early stage, underfunded, and scattershot—such that 25% of corporations aren’t even sure how much they’re spending.

4. STRATEGIC FIT IS PARAMOUNT, BUT THE UNDERLYING GOALS VARY

Startups and corporations agree that “strategic fit” is by far the primary criterion for working together, but the way they interpret the term diverges significantly. Thus, a lost-in-translation problem sometimes persists, despite the best of intentions. This is exacerbated by remaining cultural issues within corporations: many are still struggling to re-organize themselves to enable productive interactions. Conversely, startups are persistent, but remain frustrated at the number of hoops to jump through.

5. MINDSET CHANGE— NO LONGER ‘US’ VS.‘THEM’

Startups are seeing corporations in a variety of roles—no longer are they cast solely as either “competitors” or “potential acquirers”. As the startup culture matures, founders are realizing that corporations have a lot of wisdom, experience, and resources to be leveraged, and that perhaps working with, rather than against them, could be the smarter way to go. Also, in a post-Uber and Airbnb world, startups realize that the power is not only with large corporations, and that leads them to be more selective with whom they choose to work. In fact working with corporations is shaping up to be a startup’s most powerful growth hack.

AND ON A RELATED NOTE…

I found this interesting website/activity on my travels. It’s an up to date database of Corporate Accelerators being run by company’s around the world.

Ties in nicely with findings from my trend report which you can buy from iBooks or add a comment and I can provide a voucher for a FREE COPY :)

#innerventuresupdate