News Round-Up: Spring 2023 Edition

Hello FI friends!

This is our first LinkedIn news round-up - a bite-sized overview of our insights into the start-up world from the past few months. We hope it provides excellent conversational material for your next social/work event.

In this Spring edition, you will find:?

1. Our white paper on how start-ups and corporates can succeed together?

2. The start-ups who we’re most excited by right now?

3. The lowdown on the innovation events we’ve hosted so far in 2023?

As always, please do reach out if you’d like to learn more.?

Rob

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How can start-ups and corporates succeed together?

In our latest white paper, we explore the playbook on joint partnerships. Through this practical hands-on guide, we aim to equip both parties with the actionable guidance needed to achieve joint success.

Head to our website to download the guide today ?? https://lnkd.in/e3V-PEse

Our inspiration for this white paper was a fantastic panel event that we ran last year, focused on how corporates can foster an entrepreneurial mindset.

Here's a snapshot of some of the key things that we learned:

Katherine H. , Head of Low Carbon Trading Platforms and former Venture Principal at bp , highlighted the need for start-ups to find their corporate ambassadors, who can bridge ways of working and help them navigate the corporate world.

Collaboration between corporate and start-ups can be a two-way learning opportunity… if done right. ??

? Adam Levene , CEO of HERO? (acquired by Klarna ), gave us first-hand insight into things corporates usually get wrong when working with start-ups, including:

?? Assuming start-ups have all the answers?

?? Long forms and unreasonable amounts of up-front work?

?? Chipping too much on price

Start-up of the Month

Last year, we launched our answer to the Academy Awards – the Founders Intelligence “Start-up of the Month.”

Each month, we profile a challenger that we’ve recently connected with, explaining why we’re particularly excited by them.

Here are some of the brilliant start-ups who we’ve featured so far this year:

Closed Loop Medicine

Everyone's talking about digital therapeutics.

So why is your doctor still prescribing the same old medications?

Closed Loop Medicine is hoping to change this through their innovative single-label prescriptions combining traditional pharmacological treatments with data-driven digital therapeutics.

By addressing the behavioural barriers that limit the prescription of digital products, Closed Loop hopes to unlock the power of personalised medicine.

D-ID

Generative AI has everyone talking.

Excitement over its immense disruptive potential is understandably tempered by the ethical concerns arising from its widespread implementation.

D-ID are striking the balance.

Their pioneering technology converts still images of people into animated avatars, but all within the Ethical Use of Synthetic Media framework they designed in collaboration with privacy experts.

By directly addressing the concerns around generative AI, D-ID are beginning to allay the biggest fears around the technology and win trust from consumers, a vital differentiator in a rapidly crowding market.

Pachama

With Earth Day arriving this month, it seemed fitting for us to showcase a sustainability pioneer!

Meet Pachama - a carbon offsetting marketplace that verifies carbon removal using satellite data and artificial intelligence!

Carbon offsetting has not been without controversy, but trusted verification technology can help natural decarbonisation projects remain an integral component of our net zero strategy.

?Climate Tech Breakfast

Earlier this month, our Berlin Team hosted a Climate Tech Breakfast focused on the topic of Decarbonisation, moderated by FI partner Sandra Steving Villegas .

Corporate and start-up leaders came together to share insights about the current state of their net zero journey.

Common challenges faced by start-ups when scaling their solutions were:

?? Differences in corporate vs. start-up tech infrastructures

?? Varying levels of tech literacy amongst sustainability teams

?? Unstable start-up pricing models that make it difficult to forecast

?? Hefty procurement requirements

?? Long time horizon to realise business benefits

Despite facing many challenges, there are several potential starting points for solutions:

?? Supporting higher regulatory pressure to increase willingness to invest

?? Collaborating with multiple actors to address sustainability challenges across the industry

?? Sharing the business impact of corporate start-up engagements more transparently and finding a common set of simple, yet clear key performance indicators

?Thank you to the thoughtful and insightful guests who joined us, we are looking forward to the next breakfast event!

The Last Hurrah…

?? How do you raise VC funding as an early-stage start-up? ??

Our very own Jemima B. spoke to Michael Stothard , Principal at firstminute capital , to uncover his key lessons for raising seed-stage investment.

Livia Solustri extracted his 7 key principles??

https://lnkd.in/gZXspBWT

#innovation #startups #entrepreneurs