From Tech to Deep Tech

companies that are ready to share their
ideas with a limited set of people.
Online platforms: Startup platforms and
professional networks are useful for
identifying specific people and organizations.
But the information that most platforms
provide is automatically crawled on public
sources—and that information tends not to
be detailed enough to allow corporates to
gauge whether to invest time in meeting
the startup, especially in the case of earlystage
deep-tech startups. Rarely will digital
connections alone lead to landing a deal.
Scouting services: Some actors that organize
competitions or events offer scouting
services as well, leveraging their knowledge
of their ecosystem to match corporate needs
to the most relevant startups.
Corporates use in-out sourcing or out-in
sourcing to scout for new ideas and for
startups to collaborate with. Each method
focuses on events and locales adapted to
particular sourcing targets. (See Exhibit 18.)
Exhibit 18. Events and places that match different sourcing targets
Conclusion
Often corporates are eager to get a collaboration
program rolling as soon as possible. But developing
a smooth-functioning collaboration is challenging
and requires careful, methodical attention to proper
assembly. The best advice is to start conservatively
and focus on the core business needs of both
the startup and the corporate; this ensures team
mobilization from the outset and enables the
participants to improve the setup progressively and
to explore new territory as the business evolves and
matures.
On the corporate side, major elements of the process
include assessing the startup’s needs (including,
crucially, the maturity and market readiness of its
product) and designing a platform for collaboration
between corporates and startups (including
adopting an appropriate mandate, establishing an
agile environment to deliver operational support,
ensuring business buy-in, and setting up a flexible
end-to-end approach to monitor collaborations).
Startups, meanwhile, must carefully assess the type
of collaboration that is most suitable to their stage
of development, and must ensure that their culture
and that of their prospective corporate partner are
compatible during the immediate process and long term.
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