Advantaged: An Alloy Partners Podcast

Ram Jambunathan spent 15 years at SAP and finished as the SVP and General Manager running SAP.iO, the investment and incubation arm he helped pitch to SAP's board in 2015. It grew into one of the original and largest corporate venture studios: a $35 million fund, a network of equity-free accelerators across eight cities, and an internal venture studio that turned SAP employees into funded founders. He walks through how all three engines worked, what each one was actually for, and what it takes to keep a program like that funded through a decade of leadership change.

• Why SAP.iO existed in the first place: SAP was late to cloud and late to mobile, and buying your way into a market you missed is expensive. Ram and his team pitched the board on a sensing mechanism that would put SAP in front of the next wave instead of two years behind it.
• The three things a corporate venture program needs: executive mandate, creative structure, and patient capital. Ram argues you need all three or the program will not survive its first budget cycle, let alone its first CEO transition.
• Three engines, three jobs: the fund wrote seed and Series A checks and never led a round, the foundries ran equity-free accelerators across eight cities for global reach, and the internal venture studio funneled 500 employee pitches down to one to three funded teams a year.
• Why an internal startup starts ahead: SAP had already solved distribution, which is where most venture money goes after Series A. That left the studio teams one job, finding product-market fit, and a target of a billion-dollar outcome because that was 1% of SAP's market cap.
• Disproving a hypothesis is a win: Ram makes the case that killing an idea cheaply, before the company sinks real capital into it, belongs in the return column alongside the ventures that worked.
• What he took to Intapp: if every model trains on the same data, the models converge, and the differentiator becomes proprietary data and industry-specific workflows. That thesis is why he moved from a horizontal software company to a vertical one.

• Ram Jambunathan, VP of Strategy and Planning, Intapp LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ramjets Intapp: https://www.intapp.com/
• Host: Drew Beechler, VP of Marketing, Alloy Partners LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drewbeechler/ Alloy Partners: https://www.alloypartners.com/

• "The Innovator's Dilemma" by Clayton Christensen: the framing Ram names as the core problem SAP.iO was built to address
• Sapphire Ventures: SAP Ventures before it spun out, and where the SAP.iO Fund now sits
• Signavio: the acquisition that grew out of Spotlight, an internal venture studio company
• Intapp Celeste: Intapp's agentic AI platform for professional firms

• Advantaged podcast: https://www.alloypartners.com/podcast
• Alloy Partners resources: https://www.alloypartners.com/resources
• Learn about venture building: https://www.alloypartners.com/articles/what-is-venture-building
• Learn about corporate venture studios: https://www.alloypartners.com/articles/corporate-venture-studio
• Work with Alloy Partners: https://www.alloypartners.com/connect

Advantaged: An Alloy Partners Podcast

Most startups get one of the three things they need at the start. Capital, or a design partner, or real access to the people living inside the problem. John Sheehan got all three on day zero. Swift Workforce AI exists because Wellstar's venture and innovation arm found a problem inside their own hospitals and built a company around it with Alloy Partners rather than waiting for one to show up. John is a four-time healthcare founder with exits to Bain Capital and a Nasdaq-traded acquirer behind him, and in this conversation he breaks down exactly what a corporate partner provides that a startup cannot buy.

Advantaged: An Alloy Partners Podcast

Pharma marketing has an invisible bottleneck. Every brochure, every Facebook ad, every influencer post has to clear medical, legal, and regulatory (MLR) review before it can ship, and some materials take five months to get out the door. Ferry Tamtoro, CEO and founder of Revisto, joins Drew to unpack how AI is finally unblocking that workflow, what it actually takes to sell AI into one of the world's most regulated industries, and why trust beats speed in pharma.

Ferry Tamtoro, CEO and Founder, Revisto LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ferrytamtoro/

Revisto

Host: Drew Beechler, VP of Marketing, Alloy Partners LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drewbeechler/

Alloy Partners: https://www.alloypartners.com/

Advantaged: An Alloy Partners Podcast

Most corporates that try to launch a venture studio assume they already have what it takes. MIT Sloan postdoctoral researcher Dr. Constanze Coelsch-Foisner spent five years studying 65 venture studios across continents and sectors to figure out what they actually need, and her three-resources framework is the sharpest tool we have for deciding whether to launch a corporate venture studio or pick a different innovation play.

Advantaged: An Alloy Partners Podcast

The consulting industry has run on the same pyramid model for a century. AI is removing the base. In this episode, Drew talks with Utsav Bhatt, CEO of StratOff, about what comes next — the five archetypes of alternative consulting already emerging, why most enterprise AI transformations keep stalling out, and the identity and culture barriers that no one is talking about enough.

AI is collapsing the consulting pyramid: The traditional model depends on large layers of junior analysts doing research and synthesis. Once AI automates that work, the economic logic of the whole pyramid breaks — and a new model (fewer layers, more senior judgment, outcome-based pricing) has to take its place.

Five alt consulting archetypes are already forming: Solo experts, senior-heavy boutiques using AI as their operating system, strategy-as-a-product firms, expert insight platforms, and on-demand curated networks of ex-MBB talent. Incumbents now have to compete with all five at once.

Why enterprises are stuck in pilot theater: 90% of CEOs in one study say AI hasn't moved productivity. McKinsey puts 94% of companies in pilot mode. MIT found 84% of companies that invested in AI training haven't changed a single role. Companies are adopting tools — they're not redesigning work.

The behavior change problem isn't resistance, it's identity protection: Employees aren't rejecting AI. They're protecting how they know how to succeed. If your career was built on owning information and following proven processes, AI threatens all of that simultaneously. Redefining roles and creating psychological safety to experiment is where most companies fall short.

Real transformation follows the Rewire framework: Reimagine, Redesign, Realize. Most companies stop at step one. The redesign phase — actually rethinking processes, roles, and incentive structures — is where the gains live. The Solow Paradox from the 1980s is instructive: computerization didn't show up in productivity data for 10-15 years, because companies computerized their old processes instead of rethinking them.

McKinsey won't disappear, but consulting will unbundle: The big firms are already moving toward outcome-based pricing and deeper AI integration. What shifts is who gets access and what they pay for. Mid-market companies that couldn't afford MBB will access AI-powered boutiques. MBB retreats to the highest-complexity work. And as ex-consulting partners move in-house to corporate strategy offices, enterprise buyers will get much sharper about what they actually need to buy externally.

Utsav Bhatt, CEO, StratOff LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/utsavbhatt/ StratOff: https://www.stratoff.com/

Host: Drew Beechler, VP of Marketing, Alloy Partners LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drewbeechler/ Alloy Partners: https://www.alloypartners.com/

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Advantaged: An Alloy Partners Podcast

Episode Breakdown

Featured Guests

Referenced in the Show

Resources & Related Links

Advantaged: An Alloy Partners Podcast

• 00:00 Welcome to Advantaged and Alloy Partners Podcast
• 00:55 Introducing Danyel O'Connor and Umami
• 01:31 Danyel's Background in Food and Beverage
• 03:01 Understanding Umami's Role in Product Development
• 07:17 The Impact of AI on Umami's Solutions
• 09:01 Success Stories and Proof of Concept
• 11:37 The Importance of Innovation Partners
• 12:26 Conviction and Passion in Solving Problems
• 14:00 Charging Innovation Partners for Commitment
• 16:11 Founder-Market Fit and Passion for Problem Solving
• 17:35 Founder Product Fit and Early Traction
• 18:02 Passion for the Industry and Customer Satisfaction
• 19:17 Current Trends in the Food and Beverage Industry
• 20:55 Challenges and Innovations in Analog Meat
• 22:12 Consumer Journey and Product Development
• 23:13 Transitioning to B2B Software
• 26:04 Supporting Women in the Food Industry
• 29:26 Future Plans for Umami
• 31:30 Advice for Entrepreneurs and Startup Founders

• Danyel O’Connor – Entrepreneur-in-Residence, Umami
• Drew Beechler – VP of Marketing & Host, Alloy Partners​

• Umami – AI-powered CPG product development platform​.
• Fieldbook Studio – Alloy’s venture studio based in Bentonville, Arkansas, where Umami and sister ventures like Muckender and Coaxial  Collective were incubated.​​
• Muckender – Durable cleaning wipes brand launched out of Fieldbook using Umami-generated product direction.​
• Females in Food Community

Advantaged: An Alloy Partners Podcast

• Greg’s path from investment banking and Schwab corporate development into building Edward Jones’ innovation and ventures capability.​
• The founding story of Edward Jones Ventures and what they learned from a “listening tour” of what typically goes wrong in corporate VC.​
• Why Edward Jones chose a GP‑capital model instead of a balance‑sheet or traditional fund structure—and how that changes incentives and flexibility.​​
• The team’s mandate around growth, differentiated problem‑solving, and third‑horizon themes like AI, tokenization, and blockchain in wealth management.​
• How the seven‑person team splits between classic VC activities and a platform group focused on commercialization to 20,000+ advisors.​
• Edward Jones’ approach to incubation: moving from PowerPoint to live product in under 240 days and fully scaling new solutions across the firm.​
• Greg’s philosophy on AI in wealth management, including focusing less on advisor‑only tools and more on client‑facing experiences and “automating the ordinary to humanize the extraordinary.”​
• Building an ecosystem: the first Edward Jones innovation summit, bringing together advisors, executives, startups, VCs, and partners in St. Louis.​
• Practical advice from Greg for other corporates on being flexible, not over‑controlling, and avoiding common CVC pitfalls like overreaching on governance or acquisition expectations.​

• Greg Robinson – Partner & Head of Corporate Development and Edward Jones Ventures, Edward Jones​
• Drew Beechler – VP of Marketing & Partner, Alloy Partners​

Edward Jones Ventures

Alloy Partners – Venture building with leading corporations: https://www.alloypartners.com​

Advantaged: An Alloy Partners Podcast (all episodes): https://advantaged.alloypartners.com​

More episodes on corporate VC and venture building:

• The Impact of Early Strategic Investment on Product and GTM (with ServiceNow Ventures & Tenon)
• Inside ENGIE’s Venture Studio: Fast‑Tracking Energy Innovation

Advantaged: An Alloy Partners Podcast

Global logistics is a tough market, but it is also one of the most advantaged arenas for corporate venture building. In this episode, DSV venture builder and former Schenker Ventures leader Tom Schneider joins Alloy Partners’ Drew Beechler to share how they built and spun out ventures from inside a logistics giant, what they learned from NxtLog, and why AI is accelerating the pace of experimentation.​​​

• Intro & Tom’s path into venture building – From industrial engineering and autonomous vehicles at Volkswagen to venture building in logistics.​
• Why Schenker launched a venture studio – Low margins, emerging digital platforms, and the need to monetize existing data and network assets.​​
• Studio design and spin-out decisions – Strategic vs. studio ventures, portfolio outcomes, and why revenue is the core validation metric.​​
• Talent, incentives, and ownership – Hiring founders, internal rotations, and the difficulty of matching startup-like upside inside a corporate.​
• NxtLog as a case study – Starting with paid PDF “MVPs,” overbuilding a platform, and refocusing on customer value in logistics data and decision support.​​
• AI and the next wave of venture building – Using LLMs and lightweight tools to ship prototypes in days and what that means for corporate venture teams.​​

Tom Schneider – Senior Manager Venture Building, DSV (formerly Schenker Ventures)

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-schneider-muenchen/​

DSV: https://www.dsv.com/en-us/​

NxtLog: https://www.nxtlog.io/​

Drew Beechler – VP of Marketing, Alloy Partners

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drewbeechler​

Alloy Partners: https://www.alloypartners.com​

• Schenker Ventures – Corporate venture capital and venture builder at DB Schenker
• DB Schenker & NxtLog: A Visionary Collaboration
• DSV completes acquisition of Schenker

Advantaged: An Alloy Partners Podcast

On this episode of Advantaged, host Drew Beechler sits down with Amplio CEO and co-founder Trey Closson to unpack the journey from corporate supply chain leader to venture-backed founder, and the hard-earned lessons behind Amplio’s major product pivot. They explore how Sprint Week at Koch Industries sparked Amplio’s creation, why surplus industrial inventory became the company’s true north, and what it really takes for startups and corporations to experiment together successfully.​

• Trey’s non-linear path from philosophy major to supply chain operator to founder
• Sprint Week: how Amplio was born
• Why private ownership structure can enable longer-term, experiment-friendly decision-making​
• Amplio’s first act: predictive supply chain risk software
• Early customer traction and raising a seed round from Construct Capital, Slow Ventures, Alpaca, High Alpha, and Flexport
• The catalyst for a pivot: surplus inventory
• Building a marketplace for surplus assets, decommissioned industrial equipment, and raw materials
• Working with strategic corporate investors
• Why corporates must place real experimental bets—often through external startups—to sustain long-term growth​

Trey Closson – CEO & Co-founder, Amplio ​

Host: Drew Beechler – VP of Marketing, Alloy Partners

• All In Podcast – Dave Ricks interview on GLP-1s, obesity, and building an innovation culture at Eli Lilly
• Flexport – Modern freight forwarding and logistics platform
• Georgia-Pacific – Koch Industries company where Trey led international logistics and experienced entrepreneurial corporate culture.​
• Koch Industries – Privately held industrial conglomerate that partnered with Alloy Partners to create Amplio.
• Amplio Seed Round — Led by Construct Capital with participation from Slow Ventures, Alpaca VC, Flexport, High Alpha, and others.
• Amplio $11M Series A — Led by Hitachi Ventures & Yamaha Ventures.

• https://www.amplio.com/​​
• https://www.alloypartners.com/​
• Advantaged: An Alloy Partners Podcast – Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.
• Wavelength Newsletter

Advantaged: An Alloy Partners Podcast