CoVentured, the Sydney business connecting thousands of startups and scale ups to corporates, has broadened its footprint beyond Australia.
It is opening offices in Europe and Asia as part of a global push to be the leading link between big corporations, and enterprise-ready startups and scale-ups everywhere.
Founded in 2017 under the banner of corporate accelerator Slingshot, CoVentured has an impressive list of over 50 corporates on its books and a database of over 40,000 startups and scale up businesses.
Among its enviable list of Australian clients are: CBA, Bupa, Suncorp, Origin Energy, Westpac, Pfizer, Accor, Optus and Lendlease.
CoVentured works by charging a subscription fee to corporates, while startups, accelerators, VCs and community groups can list and access the service for free.
Which foreign locations is CoVentured eyeing?
CoVentured has recently opened an office in London and has already signed some major European brands on the platform including Turner Media Group, Mondelez, the BBC and Vodafone UK.
“We also have boots on the ground in Singapore and Hong Kong and are ‘eyeing off’ other regions in the near term including North America,” said CoVentured CEO Anthony Johnston.
“Our corporate partners have global challenges as well as local ones. Our expansion into new major markets helps us meet this demand for innovative, agile partners in Asia and Europe.
“The Vodafone UK partnership is a great example of this, we will play an active role in searching the global market for corporate-ready startups which can assist with the upcoming 5G rollout,” he said.
What problem does CoVenture solve in the market?
With the global issue of corporate companies forced to compete with smaller, more agile startup businesses, there’s an inherent complexity in connecting and discovering each other and finding the best way to collaborate.
Mr Johnston continued: “CoVentured simplifies the engagement process and avoids the countless, and often unnecessary, meetings it takes to filter through suitable options for both parties, we see this as a critically important if partnerships between enterprise-ready startups and corporates is to be successful at scale.
“We’ve seen that 80 per cent of the time a corporate uses CoVentured to solve a problem or create an opportunity, there is a commercial outcome. This is a fantastic success rate, and shows there is much value to both the corporate and scale-ups.
“The future for CoVentured is to expand and launch products that support what our customers are looking for.
“While our plan to become the world’s connector of corporates and startups is ambitious, we’re observing a real appetite for the service due to the changes in the way big corporations work and adapt to new challenges.
“With CoVentured simplifying the engagement process and avoiding the countless, and often unnecessary, meetings it takes to filter through suitable options for both parties, we see this as a critically important cog within the evolving business wheel.”
He added, “The future for us is global as we expand and launch products that support what our customers are looking for. We’re planning on bringing all of the many thousand Australian startups we have in our database along for the ride too.”
