Success is not final, failure is not fatal

it is the courage to continue that counts.

Why did we join the Impact Circle?
Most companies take more than 1.5 years to achieve product-market fit, and nearly half (42%) of startups never reach it before shutting down.

Who brought us on target?
Thanks to VITO we joined other investors, corporates and startups together to tackle this single biggest risk to survival.

Europe Led (the outcome)
The EIC – European Innovation Council has demonstrated that 6+ % of targeted startup-corporate interactions led to business agreements, in corporate-startup ratio of 1:12.5 since 2017 measured over 1’500+ engagements.

How: Shared Vision, Diverse Perspective
Benefit not just from what they bring, but from what others are looking for:

🔵 See beyond your blind spots
Accessing how other industry leaders frame challenges.
🔵 Collective signal strengthens insight
Seeing where interest converges across sectors offers early signals.
🔵 De-risk through diversity
When investment and evaluation are shared across multiple strategic lenses.

What: Venture Clienting
A new practice of corporate venturing is now in vogue, where corporates proactively act as early customers of startup solutions without equity stake.

🔵 Commit to the venture strategy
Management should ensure buy-in from all stakeholders (e.g. procurement).
🔵 Open to Experimentation
Adopting and permitting accelerated failure and learning cycles.
🔵 Skills Integration
Combine deep domain expertise with startup experience.

Thanks to Nils Wuytens for inviting us, and looking forward to driving these insights into impactful actions!