Why Corporate Venturing Units Fail to Scale

الملخص

Large companies create venturing units to find new growth, but few of these units ever build businesses that matter at group level. Drawing on case studies of twelve units in technology, retail and energy, we trace how decisions about funding, staffing and reporting shape what the unit can do. Units that were measured on quarterly financial targets favoured safe projects and closed promising pilots early. Units whose leaders shared goals with a business-unit sponsor were more successful at transferring ideas into the core organisation. The findings point to a handover problem rather than an idea problem. We recommend agreeing in advance who will own a venture when it succeeds, how it will be priced internally and when it will be stopped, so that scaling is planned from the first day rather than negotiated after success arrives, when interests have already diverged.