A Venture Client is a company that purchases and adopts products of startups with the purpose to obtain strategic benefits.
Venture Clienting was pioneered at BMW, which in 2015 established the world’s first Venture Client Unit: the BMW Startup Garage.
A corporate Venture Client Unit is the vehicle of a corporation that enables the entire organization to benefit strategically from the best startups fast, at low risk and with a measurable impact.
The Venture Client Track is a special area at a startup conference, where top corporate Venture Clients go to conduct business with startups, and to network with VCs and other corporations.
Corporations also use the Venture Client Track to create awareness within their culture about the strategic relevance of the startup ecosystem. This is why the Venture Client Track offers specific side-events, such as workshops, for corporate teams and top management.
The first Venture Client Track premiered at SLUSH 2021. It was a huge success, which is why SLUSH is presenting another, even better, edition in 2022.
Check out this video from the Slush 2021 Venture Client Track.
The Venture Client Track will take place at Slush 2022. The booth number is: 7A6 (across the Founder Stage).
27pilots helps companies gain competitive advantage from top startups through our suite of Venture Client Solutions that has been proven at multiple global corporations.
27pilots serves companies in over 10 industries and 5 countries. Among our customers are corporate Venture Clients such as BMW, Bosch, Holcim and Siemens.
27pilots was founded in 2018 by Gregor Gimmy, a former innovation strategist at BMW and IDEO. In 2014, while working for BMW, Gregor coins the term “Venture Client” and develops the Venture Client Model. In 2015, Gregor establishes and leads the world’s first Venture Client Unit. In 2018, Gregor founds 27pilots with the mission to help companies beyond BMW to become excellent Venture Clients.
This HBR article tells the founding story of the Venture Client Model at BMW.
Find out more about the 27pilots market-leading Venture Client Solutions here.
27pilots mission is to help corporations become excellent Venture Clients.
In 2021 we thought about how to enable corporations to engage better with startups at startup conferences. We also saw that corporations with a Venture Client Unit were seeking a forum to network and learn from each other.
This is how the idea for a Venture Client Track was born. SLUSH was the logical choice for the first Venture Client Track.
Out of over 1.500 participating startups at Slush 2022 (based on Slush’s matchmaking platform), 27pilots curated approx. 480 startups that are suitable for corporate Venture Clients due to criteria such as maturity, technology area and funding.
After selecting relevant startups from the curated list, please use the Slush Matchmaking Tool to book meetings. There, you can find the startup, and chat and book meetings with team members of the startup attending Slush.
Yes! Please still fill out the form on this website. The corporate Venture Client will get back to you in case of interest in your technology.