What Japan’s CVCs can teach the rest of us

The future of Japanese industry depends on startups.

At some point in the early 2000s the seemingly unstoppable engine of Japanese corporate innovation mysteriously began to spin down.

Product quality was still high, of course, but corporate R&D seemed increasingly unable to launch anything truly innovative.

Today we sit down with Nicolas Sauvage, President of TDK Ventures, who explains how Japanese enterprise is increasingly looking to startups to fill that gap. And it's working. We talk about what makes for successful enterprise-startup collaboration, how startup innovations are being adopted within enterprises, and exactly who CVC units really need to answer to.

It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it.

Show Notes

How the parent's history and DNA effects CVC

TDK Venture's  four-year innovation horizon

A strategy for finding and investing in innovative startups

How to convince an enterprise to start a CVC unit

The false dichotomy between financial and strategic concerns

How CVCs can reliably drive innovation back to their parent