January, 2018 | CFPro Ventures Ltd

Is Corporate Venture Capital Investment right for me, and my business?

Innovative businesses pose a constant threat to Corporations. Fact. But why is that? Well, you, as a younger, more agile, more creative, less bureaucratic business has the ability to move in almost any direction. You have innovation and creative thought. You have very little that confines you to a particular structure and model. You're exploring, testing, creating. Your pricing is competitive, your team is strong and together, you're building something pretty amazing. And that's why larger organisations are worried. You are able to move at a much quicker pace than they can. Unless, of course, they start to behave like [...]

Katy Roberts2018-03-12T16:34:34+00:00January 30th, 2018|News, SME Growth|Comments Off

Corporate Venture Capital within the Automotive and AutoTech spaces

It doesn't take a lot of research to notice that Corporate Venturing is here and it's not going anywhere, quickly. A year ago, in fact, Teddy Himler (a senior associate at Comcast Ventures in NYC) wrote an article for Forbes where he noted that 75 of the Fortune 100 at the time, were active in corporate venturing, with 41 of those having a dedicated CVC team. In fact, at the time, these 75 represented a growing source of capital as well, participating in nearly a third of all U.S. venture deals and 40% in Asia. It was clear then that Corporate Venture Capital's growing role [...]

Katy Roberts2018-03-12T16:34:43+00:00January 30th, 2018|Corporate Venturing, News|Comments Off

A New Type of Business Incubator

Traditionally, an incubator is defined as "an enclosed apparatus or process in which premature or unusually small babies are placed and which provides a controlled and protective environment with the right level of skill and equipment for their care and development." Take a step away from the Maternity suite, for a second, and cast your mind out towards the business connotation. We see business incubators popping up in every direction. We see property being developed purely to serve a networked, more fluid business community where startups and entrepreneurs can work together and have access to immediate, on demand business acumen. [...]

Katy Roberts2018-03-12T16:34:50+00:00January 23rd, 2018|Corporate Venturing, News|Comments Off

What is Corporate Venturing and how do businesses benefit?

"Corporate venturing takes many forms. At its most basic it can be purely a financial investment with a larger company taking an equity stake in a smaller company. This is often done through a separate fund being set up specifically to invest in startup and growth companies in the same way that a traditional venture capital firm would." - Startups.co.uk Simply put: It's corporate investment providing huge opportunity for startup businesses, and businesses looking for high-growth alternatives. Henry Chesbrough, professor at Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, explains in his "Making Sense of Corporate Venture Capital" article, Corporate Venture [...]

Katy Roberts2018-03-12T16:35:00+00:00January 23rd, 2018|Corporate Venturing, News|Comments Off

How does your business fit into the business growth spectrum?

The progression from startup to mature business is a long, and sometimes arduous, journey. Businesses in all stages of growth face problems, but they all have the ability to look forward and learn about where they will be heading if their success continues. This CFPro Ventures guide explores the various levels of growth and helps you understand where your business may, with the right planning and the right support, be heading! Stage one: Development of your idea Referred to by some as the ‘seed’ stage, this is the time when you are exploring the possible avenues in which you [...]

Katy Roberts2017-12-21T11:43:19+00:00January 18th, 2018|News|Comments Off

High-Growth Business Trends that will Disrupt 2018.

No, this won't be a blog about Science Fiction. At least not in its entirety. Let’s be honest – chances are your business is going to encounter some unforeseen consequences at some point during the coming year. And whilst no one can fully plan for every contingency, there's a lot you can do to prepare for the inevitable, and turn it to your advantage. We have put together a list of business trends that may impact your company in the next 12 months. Cyber Security After 2017’s WannaCry ransomware attack, we were warned that businesses and infrastructure were likely [...]

Katy Roberts2017-12-20T10:49:26+00:00January 17th, 2018|News|Comments Off

The art of leadership in a high-growth environment

Leadership in business is often seen as one of the most difficult characteristics to nurture - as ironic as that sounds. Surely if you're in management, you lead? Not always the case. We could spend countless hours detailing the fine art of Leadership, discussing the different types of leadership, the effectiveness of one over the other and more, but that's not what we plan to do today. However, if you're reading this, then we'd be pretty certain to place our bets on the fact that you, as an individual, have the leadership qualities we speak about - or at least, [...]

Katy Roberts2018-03-12T16:35:13+00:00January 10th, 2018|News, SME Growth|Comments Off

The risk of High-Growth that nobody tells you about.

Inc. Magazine completed a follow-up study eight years after they first published their ‘5000 Fastest Growing Companies List’ – and the result? A shocking two-thirds of companies on the list had shrunk, ceased trading or been sold disadvantageously. The main reason for this was their failure to mature and prepare for their high-growth period. As CFPro Ventures, and even in our previously lives before CFPro Ventures, we have had the pleasure to work with many high-growth businesses – and by the time the businesses come to us for help, they’re keen, eager and ready to take the next step forward. [...]

Katy Roberts2018-03-12T16:35:22+00:00January 9th, 2018|News, SME Growth|Comments Off

Focus on Friday: EVRYTHNG

“We’re called EVRYTHNG because we believe that every physical thing around us is coming to life digitally in some shape or form” – and that’s what caught our attention. In this week’s Focus on Friday feature, we explore a business who is taking the Internet of Things phenomenon and transforming the lives of businesses daily through helping them to assign digital identity and manage their data effectively through connecting consumer products to the Web and managing real-time data to drive applications throughout the product lifecycle. Here’s what they say: “EVRYTHNG collects, manages and applies real-time data from smart products [...]

Katy Roberts2017-12-20T11:56:50+00:00January 5th, 2018|Focus on Friday, News|Comments Off

What 2017 taught the business world about coping with Disaster.

2017 was a bumpy ride. There’s no doubt about it. But for some, it was bumpier than others – in fact, for one business in particular, 2017 started on a £4.6bn statutory pre-tax loss. Not a great way to go into a New Year. We take a look back at some of the business disasters of last year, and the lessons they taught the business community. Disasters spur action 2017 was a year of natural disasters in the form of Hurricane Harvey and Irma, the California wild fires, deadly earthquakes in Mexico, to name just a few. And unfortunately, [...]

Katy Roberts2017-12-20T11:38:05+00:00January 4th, 2018|News|Comments Off