In this episode, I’m joined by Nicole LeBlanc, Partner at Woven Capital, Toyota’s growth-stage venture fund. Nicole and her team manage a combined $1.6B across two funds, sitting at the critical junction where startups need to move from "move fast and break things" to global deployment.

We explore the launch of their new $800M Fund 2, how they differentiate from early-stage investing, and what it really takes to integrate external innovation into the world’s largest automaker.

In this episode, Nicole shares insights on:

💸 The $800M Signal

Why Woven Capital launched Fund 2 now , doubling down on AI and climate tech , and how in today’s geopolitical environment, corporates bring scale while startups bring the necessary speed.

🤝 Early vs. Growth Stage

The clear distinction between Toyota Ventures (early-stage "cousins") and Woven Capital (growth-stage) , and how they pass deal flow to ensure startups have support from seed to scale.

🧭 The "Portfolio Success" Superpower

Why writing the check is the easy part, and how Woven’s dedicated team guides startups through Toyota’s complex business units so they don’t get lost in the organization.

⚖️ Strategic Value vs. Financial Discipline

How to balance the dual mandate. Nicole explains why a deal must stand on its own financially first—even if the strategic story is perfect—to ensure long-term resilience.

🔋 Real-World Case Study: Weave Grid

A concrete example of how investing in Weave Grid allowed Toyota to solve the "3,000 utilities" problem while giving the startup the validation needed to unlock the rest of the OEM market.

🧠 AI Beyond the Hype

Why she sees AI not just as a buzzword, but as a foundational unlock for logistics, fleet management, and simulation—improving operations rather than just perception.

We close the episode on Nicole’s personal view: why corporate venturing is "not a 9-to-5 job" and why, despite the massive scale and deep tech, success ultimately comes down to human connection.

Resources:• Open Road Ventures Newsletter• Bundl Venture Club

🎧 Follow the podcast for grounded stories and practical lessons from inside the world of Open Innovation and Corporate Venturing.

🎙️ AI Infrastructure, minus the buzzwords.

In this episode, Ji Hoon Kwon (Managing Director, Samsung Ventures) explains where AI data centers really choke (power, thermal, and networking) why baseload energy matters, and how a CVC can move at VC speed while creating value beyond capital. He also pressure-tests “future” ideas like floating and space data centers with an operator’s lens.

Highlights

• 🔌 Power is bottleneck #1. GPU draw jumped to ~1–1.2 kW per chip; racks push ~120 kW, and lost power turns into heat.

• 🌡️ Thermal follows power. More watts mean more heat; rethink electrical and cooling together.

• ⚙️ Next wave: power electronics. Efficiency in conversion and distribution becomes the lever.

• 🔋 Baseload beats intermittency. 24/7 AI favors SMR nuclear and geothermal over variable-only supply.

• 🧪 Diligence that saves time. Run technical and financial checks in parallel; decide fast or pass fast.

• 🤝 Value after the check. Open doors across BUs—manufacturing, customers, and design-ins—not just capital.

• 🛟 Future formats, reality check. Floating and space DCs have promise, but corrosion, maintenance, connectivity, and launch costs are tough.

• 📈 What makes a “good” CVC deal. Strategic fit matters, but financial returns still keep the engine running.

Resources:

• 📬 Open Road Ventures Newsletter

• ⚡ Bundl Venture Club

🎙️ Welcome to a new episode of The Corporate Venturing Podcast!

When technology, products and even tone of voice can be copied overnight, what really makes innovation stand out?

In this episode, I’m joined by Nicolò Andreula — economist, entrepreneur, investor and strategic consultant. After a global career across the UN, Goldman Sachs, McKinsey and a boutique firm in Singapore advising Google, Uber, Netflix and Microsoft, Nicolò came back to Bari to build Disal Consulting, write books like Flow Generation and co-create ABCD – A Bari Capitale Digitale. 

Together, we explore how storytelling can make or break innovation: inside companies, in the market, and even at city level.

In this episode, Nicolò shares insights on:

🧠 Scarcity in the age of AI – why the rare asset isn’t information anymore, but human touch, empathy and the ability to filter and frame meaning

⚗️ How stories hit the brain – from amygdala “fight–flight–freeze” reactions to dopamine, oxytocin and endorphins, and why people remember stories more than slides

🚗 The Toyota family-car example – how a safety campaign built around emotion, not crash-test numbers, can create trust without ever saying “trust us”

💉 What vaccine campaigns got wrong – and what that teaches corporate innovators about talking to fears and emotions, not just rational arguments

🚠 Funicolare Vesuviana & the power of a jingle – turning a scary new transport system into a joyful collective experience through music and narrative

🤖 Humanizing AI and chatbots – the story of a “younger colleague” bot that asks for help instead of pretending to be perfect, and why that drove adoption and ownership

📩 Internal storytelling for transformation – why one-size-fits-all corporate emails fail, and how to segment employees by emotions and attitudes to change

🧍‍♂️ Selective vulnerability in leadership – from the “pratfall effect” to the Starbucks example, how admitting the right flaws can bring people behind a new strategy

🌍 ABCD – A Bari Capitale Digitale – how a “crazy” vision, a name, and a story turned Bari into a magnet for talent, companies and digital nomads

We close the episode on a personal note, looking at the moment that most shaped Nicolò’s view on storytelling, strategy and innovation, and how he turned the shock of COVID into a new way of working and living. 

Resources:

• Open Road Ventures Newsletter

• Bundl Venture Club

🎧 Follow the podcast for grounded stories and actionable insights from inside the world of Open Innovation and Corporate Venturing.

What is Venture Innovation? How can you scale it?

In this episode, I’m joined by Jelena Joffe Weil, Worldwide Leader for Venture Innovation at Amazon Web Services (AWS). Jelena and her team sit at the intersection of enterprises and startups, matching real problems with the right founders and helping both sides move from idea to impact.

We explore how collaborative innovation is changing in the age of GenAI, and what it actually takes to make these partnerships work at scale.

In this episode, Jelena shares insights on:

⚙️ What venture innovation really is

How AWS Venture Innovation helps enterprises de-risk and scale innovation, while giving startups the one thing they value most: access to decision-makers, not more credits.

🤖 Why AI is forcing “outside-in” innovation

How the shift from “move to cloud” to “AI at the core” pushed corporates to accept they can’t build everything alone—and need the right partners instead.

🎯 Picking use cases that matter

The three filters she uses to choose where to start: a clear problem, measurable business impact, and a real team with budget behind it. 

🏭 A concrete Next-Gen Lab example

How a global CPG company aligned 20+ leaders, met five pre-qualified startups in one day, and moved four of them to next steps—with one becoming the chosen partner for lab automation. 

📌 The “never start without” rule

Why her team refuses to begin without three basics: a sponsor, a focused theme/use case, and actual decision-makers in the room—otherwise you just create another pilot that goes nowhere. 

📈 KPIs for both sides of the table

How she separates business KPIs (time saved, costs cut, revenue uplift) from internal ones focused on ecosystem health, startup growth, and depth of relationships with business leaders.

🚀 Access = right person × right need ^ now

Her formula for startup go-to-market: getting founders in front of the right person, with the right need, at the right moment—and why building customer trust is the real secret sauce of “matchmaker magic”.

We close the episode on Jelena’s personal “why”: using emerging technology to make this world a little better by matching the work of courageous founders with the resources and scale of large organization.

Resources:

• Open Road Ventures Newsletter

• Bundl Venture Club

🎧 Follow the podcast for grounded stories and practical lessons from inside the world of Open Innovation and Corporate Venturing.

🎙️ Welcome to a new episode of The Corporate Venturing Podcast!

In Venture Clienting: Lessons from the Field, I’m joined by Lisa Kratochwill (Startup Engagement, VERBUND X) and José “Pepe” Pascual (former Head, Cencosud Ventures).

Lisa runs a multi-corporate program that takes real business challenges to pilot and beyond. Pepe built a venture-client engine in Latin America with clear KPIs, budget ownership, and a bias to action.

Together, we unpack what makes venture clienting work in practice, and where it breaks.

In this episode, Lisa and Pepe share insights on:

• 🧭 The simple rule for tool choice: when to client, when to build, and when to invest, and how to decide fast.

• 🧩 From use case to pilot: framing the problem, scouting the right startup, and setting success upfront.

• 📑 Procurement that helps, not hurts: pilot T&Cs, fast-track onboarding, and who signs the invoice.

• 📊 KPIs you can read on one slide: cost savings or new revenue, time-to-pilot, SLA/quality, and a powerful input metric: number of challenges identified.

• 💸 Budget ownership = speed: why a dedicated pilot budget and a clear “pilot owner” reduce friction.

• 🛡️ Compliance early: how regulation can block a “successful” PoC, and how to prevent late surprises.

• 🤝 Multi-corporate as a force multiplier: sharing risk, budget, and skills on cross-industry topics (e.g., vehicle-to-grid).

• 🔁 From pilot to scale: land small, prove value, then expand, what changes between site #1 and rollout.

• 🚫 Common pitfalls: scope creep, “tourism” pilots, and fuzzy goals that kill conversion.

• ⚡ Culture-shifting moments: the small wins that flip skeptics into champions.

We close by reflecting on the moments when a startup solution made the value of this work obvious to everyone in the room.

Resources:

• Open Road Ventures Newsletter

• Bundl Venture Club

🎧 Follow the podcast for grounded stories and actionable insights from inside Open Innovation and Corporate Venturing.

🎙️ Welcome to a new episode of The Corporate Venturing Podcast!

What separates corporate ventures that actually scale from those that stall in POC limbo?

In this episode, I’m joined by Patrick Luke, Co-Founder and CEO of Zigzag: a fast-growing B2C startup born from inside Nestlé Purina and now thriving as an independent, purpose-driven B Corp.

Patrick shares the rare perspective of someone who’s lived every side of corporate venture building: from strategy and innovation at HQ, to spinning out a venture and leading it full-time as founder.

Together, we unpack what truly makes venture building work—and where it often breaks down.

In this episode, Patrick shares insights on:

🏗️ Structural enablers : the systems, setups, and governance models that allow ventures to scale

💡 Consumer centricity as a North Star: why business value follows user value

⚖️ The corporate-venture tension: where to draw the line on autonomy vs. integration

📊 Real-world metrics: proving value with data and traction, not just vision

🧪 Why B Corp? the thinking behind Zigzag’s rare certification, and its unexpected benefits

🚫 Common pitfalls: why many ventures fail due to speed, funding, or unclear ownership

🧠 Team building in venture mode: hiring for pace, ownership, and adaptability

🔁 Lessons in iteration: how Zigzag evolved its strategy through constant learning loops

🎯 From strategy decks to scientific proof: the study that validated Zigzag’s impact

We close the episode reflecting on Patrick’s most meaningful milestones: from corporate innovation teams to publishing peer-reviewed research, and what it really took to get there.

Resources:

• ⁠Open Road Ventures Newsletter⁠

• ⁠Bundl Venture Club⁠

🎧 Follow the podcast for grounded stories and actionable insights from inside the world of Open Innovation and Corporate Venturing.

🎙️ Welcome to a new episode of The Corporate Venturing Podcast!

Why do so many corporate innovation programs struggle? Not because of a lack of ideas, but because their internal culture isn’t ready to embrace them!

In this episode, I sit down with Mar Serra, Global Lead for Product Application at Nestlé (and former head of Nestlé Accelerator in Lausanne), and Benjamin Lickfett, Global VP of Breakthrough Innovation at Diageo, to explore how to build internal cultures that truly support external ideas.

Together, we dive into the real challenges (and the practical solutions) for creating openness inside large organizations:

🌍 The cultural clash between corporate scale and startup agility
⚡ Why innovation fails without the right structures, incentives, and psychological safety
🛠️ Concrete tactics: accelerators, mentorship, reverse mentoring, hackathons, and “celebrating the kill”
👥 Spotting and developing the right internal champions (because innovation isn’t for everyone)
📐 How to adapt governance and processes (like Diageo’s Ignite model) to move at startup speed
🚀 Maintaining momentum once pilot hype fades—turning wins and failures into long-term belief in innovation
🎯 Securing leadership alignment without slowing everything down
💡 Why Return on Learning is as important as ROI

Both Mar and Benny share candid lessons from Nestlé and Diageo: two global giants learning to balance core business discipline with entrepreneurial freedom.

And we close on a personal note: the most rewarding transformations they’ve witnessed: individuals and teams returning from innovation programs with new confidence, resilience, and mindsets that ripple across the company.

If you’re building corporate innovation teams or trying to spark cultural change inside your organization, this episode is packed with practical wisdom and hope that it is possible.

Resources:

• ⁠Open Road Ventures⁠

• ⁠Bundl Venture Club⁠

🎧 Follow this podcast for more grounded stories from inside the world of Open Innovation and Corporate Venturing.

🎙️ Welcome to a new episode of The Corporate Venturing Podcast!

How can corporates buy innovation at startup speed, and amplify their R&D budgets by tapping into billions of euros of external capital? Today, I sit down with Fabian Dudek, co-founder and CEO of GlassDollar, pioneers of Venture Clienting (aka innovation procurement). We unpack why this model has emerged as a core pillar of corporate venturing, explore hard data from GlassDollar’s 2025 Impact Study, and dive into practical frameworks and real-world lessons.

In this episode, Fabian shares his perspective on:

🧭 Macro-trends fueling Venture Clienting — economic pressure, accelerating tech cycles, and the limits of in-house R&D

⚙️ The Corporate Venturing Toolbox matrix — how to choose between build, buy, partner, or invest

📊 Surprising insights from 66,424 PoCs — success rates, time-to-first value, ROI, and why many teams still overlook these metrics

📈 Maturity stages: Starter, Growing, Pro — the concrete signals to self-diagnose your stage and the #1 shift to scale your PoC program

🛠️ Lean PoC governance — fail-fast loops, cost-control, and cross-functional alignment with IT and procurement

📐 KPIs that matter — measuring true strategic impact vs. vanity metrics

🌍 Bridging startup agility with corporate process rigor — breaking through IT and procurement bottlenecks

🚀 Benchmarks from Siemens & Samsung — how leading corporates leverage €20–60 bn of VC funding through startup partnerships versus their internal R&D

💡 Startups vs. traditional suppliers — why innovation procurement demands a different playbook

🔮 The future of Venture Clienting — policy levers, AI-driven analytics, and emerging tech frontiers

Plus, we close with Fabian’s most rewarding moments building GlassDollar, and how he’s helped corporates indirectly tap into over €55 bn of external innovation funding.

Resources:

• Corporate Venturing Matrix mentioned by Fabian

• Open Road Ventures Newsletter

• Bundl Venture Club

🎧 Follow the podcast for more grounded stories and actionable insights from inside the world of Open Innovation and Corporate Venturing.

🎙️ Welcome to a new episode of The Corporate Venturing Podcast!

What does it take to build a Corporate Venture Capital unit from scratch and scale it into one of the world’s most respected deep tech investors?

In this episode, I sit down with Dong-Su Kim, Ph.D., Founding CEO of LG Technology Ventures, and one of the top 2025 GCV Power List leaders. Since 2018, Dong-Su has led LG’s CVC arm from zero to nearly $900 million AUM, with over 80 investments and more than 10 exits and IPOs across AI, batteries, energy, advanced materials, and more.

We dive into the bold choices and core principles that guided him in building LG Ventures as an autonomous, future-focused, and globally connected investor: operating more like a financial VC, but wired for strategic value.

Dong-Su shares his perspective on:

🧭 The false dichotomy of strategic vs. financial value in CVC

⚙️ How to structure teams for both investment performance and startup collaboration

🌍 Balancing Silicon Valley speed with Korean corporate culture

🧪 Why deep tech is the foundation of LG’s long-term edge—and how CVC fits in

🧱 How LG Ventures helps startups validate tech, enter markets, and scale

🚀 The real meaning of “value creation” beyond just capital

📉 Lessons from past investments and avoiding hype cycles

🔮 Why he’s considering a new fund with external LPs to double down on breakout ventures

Plus, we close with a candid look at what personally drives Dong-Su: the joy of helping exceptional founders succeed.

Whether you’re running a venture arm or navigating corporate-startup collaboration, this episode is a real-world blueprint for building something that lasts.

Resources:

• Open Road Ventures

• Bundl Venture Club

🎧 Follow the podcast for more grounded stories from inside the world of Open Innovation and Corporate Venturing.

🎙️ Welcome to a new episode of The Corporate Venturing Podcast!

What does it take to lead Corporate Venturing in a global organisation, when the rules are shifting, and the real challenge is not building ventures… but making them stick?

In this episode, I sit down with Patricia Kroondijk, Head of Corporate Venture Capital and Venture Building at Canon, to explore what it means to drive innovation inside a company known for excellence and legacy, but hungry for transformation.

Patricia shares her personal framework of the three roles every corporate venturer must master:

🎩 The Diplomat — navigating power structures and getting buy-in

🧠 The Therapist — helping the organisation unlearn old habits

🪄 The Magician — creating value where no one thought it was possible

+ Of course, The Entrepreneur (quite obvious)

We also discuss:

🧭 Why venturing is ultimately a cultural transformation tool

⚖️ The power dynamics between core business and new ventures

🚫 Why pushing too fast can trigger antibodies — and how to pace the journey

🌐 How her team thinks globally but executes in alignment with local units

🧱 The invisible work behind aligning stakeholders before a venture even launches

Whether you’re building a venture unit, managing a CVC fund, or trying to bring real innovation into a complex organisation, this episode is a masterclass in the nuance, realism, and persistence it takes to make it work.

Resources:

• ⁠Open Road Ventures⁠

• ⁠Bundl Venture Club⁠

🎧 Follow the podcast for more grounded stories from inside the world of Open Innovation and Corporate Venturing.