Most newly foun­ded com­pa­nies initi­ally want to go it alone and aim to blaze their own trail to ulti­mate suc­cess. Gene­rally, some­where along this adven­tur­ous and fre­quently arduous jour­ney, it often beco­mes clear that the path to making a major dent in the world would be signi­fi­cantly shor­tened by part­ne­ring with others that have spe­cial assets which can bring the ulti­mate goal clo­ser, such as pro­duct deve­lo­p­ment exper­tise, com­ple­men­tary offe­rings (see our News­let­ter about enab­ling pro­ducts here), mar­ket access, deep pockets, etc.

Of course, for young com­pa­nies, fin­ding well-sui­ted part­ner­ships is not as easy as snap­ping one´s fin­gers. In addi­tion to pos­ses­sing an attrac­tive inno­va­tion, young com­pa­nies need to build a solid foun­da­tion that engen­ders trust from lar­ger cor­po­ra­ti­ons, which will always be weig­hing the poten­tial bene­fits of coope­ra­tion against the risks to their busi­ness that a part­ner­ship can intro­duce. Pro­ba­bly the most deli­cate balance start-ups must mas­ter is advan­cing their deve­lo­p­ment at lightspeed while also estab­li­shing the struc­ture, relia­bi­lity, disci­pline, and secu­rity that are essen­tial pre­re­qui­si­tes for enga­ging in sin­cere dis­cus­sions with lar­ger cor­po­rate part­ners. Inno­va­tive com­pa­nies that do this well are able to estab­lish proof-of-tech­no­logy, proof-of-mar­ket, and proof-of-com­pa­ti­bi­lity with stra­te­gic part­ners seam­lessly along their journey.

For young com­pa­nies that manage this balance and become attrac­tive for cor­po­ra­tes, deter­mi­ning the right time to sacri­fice par­tial (or com­plete) auto­nomy for enhan­ced chan­ces of suc­cess by gai­ning access to these spe­cial cor­po­rate assets is rarely crys­tal clear. Howe­ver, a gene­ral rule is that a part­ner­ship only makes sense when the com­bi­ned forces dra­ma­ti­cally increase the impact that a pro­duct or solu­tion can have in the world. There will ine­vi­ta­bly be fric­tions invol­ved in sha­ring the stee­ring wheel, so it is important that the bene­fits are large and clear in order to keep ever­yone dri­ving toward the shared goal.

Ulti­m­ately, a busi­ness´ value should be deter­mi­ned by its posi­tive impact on society and joi­ning forces with a cor­po­rate part­ner can often be the best way for inno­va­tions to drive meaningful change and thus create signi­fi­cant value. We are extre­mely plea­sed with the three excel­lent part­ner­ships with cor­po­ra­tes that our Inves­tee-Part­ners achie­ved so far this year, pre­cis­ely because we are cer­tain that in each case even grea­ter value crea­tion lies ahead.

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