Mike Gelb’s Post

Did you know that corporate venture capital (CVC) total deal value has increased more than tenfold over the past decade? CVC is essentially a practice where a large corporate entity takes an equity stake in a small but innovative (or specialist) company with the objective of gaining a specific competitive advantage. When most people familiar with CVC think about the concept, they tend to beeline towards large tech companies, but this type of investing is done by every sector in the economy...and that includes retailers and CPG companies! Walmart = Walmart Ventures Unilever = Unilever Ventures L'Oréal = L'Oreal BOLD Ventures Ulta Beauty = Prisma Ventures ...and the list goes on and on! But CVC (and/or brand incubators) have spiked in popularity as these companies are having to evolve more rapidly to meet the needs of customers. #strategy #trends #markets #fmcg #cpg #food #beverages #finance #investing #mergersandacquisitions #sportsnutrition #supplements #innovation #productdevelopment #branding #marketing #merchandising #retailing #retail #business #businessintelligence #entrepreneurship #consultants

Reflecting on an incredible Experience at KoRo 👋 A couple of months ago, I was contacted by a well-known VC fund specialized in Food tech to explore potential collaboration for one of their start-ups. That’s how I met KoRo, one of the top brand and fast-growing start-ups in the Food Tech! I was really lucky to meet them and help on building strategic roadmaps for Netherlands and Italy for a while 🌍 What followed was an 🌟 incredible learning experience 🌟 and here are a few highlights based on the pitfalls most start-ups encounter: ✅ The Culture challenge « Culture eats strategy for breakfast » (Peter Drucker…and regularly Jean Moreau 😉 ). No matter how great your strategy is, your plan will fail if your culture doesn’t encourage people to implement it. The thing is, from 1 to 100 employees, from 0 to 100m€, you need to adapt your culture constantly. But, as culture is not easy to define (rituals, symbols, power structures...), as founders rarely want it to change, the statu quo is often the rule…and can dramatically damage your performance in the mid-term. I was very impressed by the way people at KoRo are engaged in their company’s culture and the job done around redefining leadership principles, keeping everybody on-board and aligned with strategy 🚢 ✅ The Scale challenge Or how to « Scale your business without scaling your problems ». Small problems remain small in the early stage of development, but when scaling, BOOM! 💥 The small default in your tech that was « good enough », the absence of contracts with your key suppliers -again « good enough» in your seed/A-serie, are now a thorn in the side that cause extra-work, stress, directly impacting revenues. The way-out? Team-work from Top to Bottom. I’ve seen KoRo in action working together to correct and adjust in a very efficient way, displaying amazing solidarity and collective effort. ✅ The Juniority challenge  Or "How do you lead a company with 200+ employees, with a 27-years-old average age ?" As an ex start-up executive, I’ve seen Juniority in the teams as both refreshing and exhausting, especially for managers. Lack of autonomy, under (or over) self-confidence, constant training required on hard and soft-skills…might be difficult to manage. But quality of these junior people make the difference: at KoRo I’ve seen juniors so motivated, and bold, learning so fast, that they were gaining the equivalent of one year of experience in a couple of weeks! Trust and empowerment can do miracles...and juniority suddenly turns into strength 💪 I appreciated every single minute working with KoRo 💌 And with their recent fundraising, no doubt the best is yet to come for KoRo I now know where to buy on-line « better for me » food (www.koro.fr), and am looking forward finding my favorite KoRo products on the French retailers' shelves! Louisa Moulai Christine Hamel Francois Alarcon Maël Le Moal

🎉 𝐍𝐞𝐰 𝐅𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐍𝐞𝐰𝐬! 🚀 Crisp, the New York-based collaborative commerce firm, has just secured a whopping $50 million in funding! 💰 With notable investors such as Blue Cloud Ventures, FirstMark Capital, Spring Capital, and 3L participating in the equity round, alongside TriplePoint Capital LLC providing debt financing, Crisp's journey towards revolutionizing the data integration and business intelligence industry has reached new heights! Crisp has been on a mission to provide a collaborative commerce platform that empowers brands and distributors with real-time store and shelf-level data, optimizing inventory management, sales forecasting, and marketing strategies. 📊 Leveraging the power of the cloud, Crisp connects and normalizes over 40 retail data sources, delivering invaluable insights and trends to its users. 💼 With this new infusion of capital, Crisp is poised to accelerate its growth plans, focusing on product development, market expansion, and further acquisitions. Hundreds of brands, retailers, and distributors already benefit from Crisp's platform, including major names like Mars and Kraft Heinz. 🌟 Congratulations to the entire team at Crisp for this incredible achievement! 🎉 Can't wait to see what the future holds for you! 🚀 Link in the comments 👇👇👇 #Crisp #CollaborativeCommerce #Funding #Technews🎉🚀

#Startup brands are rethinking their exit roadmaps, which, more and more, come down to being acquired by a larger company. M&A remains frequent, thanks to fire sales of struggling companies in the past year. But gone are the days when a strategic acquirer like Unilever would shell out $1 billion on a startup simply because it’s a direct-to-consumer brand. And, lackluster #IPO debuts from previous #DTC darlings like Casper and Allbirds within the past four years have also soured the prospects of going public for DTC brands. #cpg Read more: https://buff.ly/3U2o0Ua

Looking for advice on scaling your #startup to reach more consumers and earn more corporate venture funding? My colleague Richie Gray has you covered. Just don't ask him about that brogue! (Credit: Laura Shulman)

no more exits for cpg brands? 👀🙃 my thoughts… I saw a panel at an investor event in SF and this CPG conglomerate leader (I don’t name names) said some wild stuff about $25m brands not being “acquirable” in today’s environment. Well - he’s tryna keep his costs down by downplaying successful brands. Also, if he’s being real, he’s missing out on a lot of easy wins when a big acquirer with existing distribution networks can push these brands through new channels and cover his cost of acquisition pretty quickly. what do yall think? #brand #siete #unilever #startups #sushi #airport

Absolutely brutal, but this shift could be a blessing in disguise for many CPG brands. With less VC money chasing them, founders can focus on building sustainable, profitable businesses without the pressure of a quick exit. This opens doors for alternative funding models or bootstrapping, fostering a more organic and long-term oriented CPG landscape. What are your thoughts on alternative funding models for CPG brands in this new environment?

Running a corporate venture fund in a big beauty strategic was akin to being the vegetarian option on a steakhouse menu. M&A was where the real action took place, and corporate venture was where you parked promising executives in-between meatier rotations. And the challenges were obvious: so much that makes a VC successful–nimbleness, appetite for risk, out-of-box thinking, small check sizes, founder management–were exactly the things that large Strategics have always struggled with. So these funds were few and far between. How times have changed. Today, every major beauty strategic has a corporate venture arm. While they come in different shapes and sizes, and with different mandates and operating models, every strategic has realized that they can no longer ignore early-stage investing. Moreover, these funds are having an impact on the market and playing a meaningful role in shaping the nature and direction of early stage investing. In this panel we'll examine the range of corporate ventures—from their mandate, to focus and operating models. Joining us on stage we'll have representatives from Fable Investments, L'Oréal BOLD Ventures and Unilever Ventures. to discuss key lessons learned, what founders should expect, and how the field is expected to evolve over time. The Beauty Independent Dealmaker Summit is coming to London next November 11-12. Make sure you secure your spot today: https://bit.ly/45uSPpK #hereforthefierce #dealmaking #funding #vc #venturecapital #capital #beautyindustry #learning #conference

Stuck at 5 figures in your business?  Let's talk about how to make the big leap. 👇 Joint ventures is your secret weapon for exponential growth. When you join forces with another business with some abilities or resources you don't have, you'll do way more than if you were just flying solo. A perfect example is when the food giants Nestlé and General Mills collaborated to create Cereal Partners Worldwide. Nestlé knew a ton about making tasty cereals, and General Mills was a pro at marketing and selling them worldwide.    The results? ✅ Access to new markets & tech ✅ Shared risks and expenses ✅ Increased competitiveness By combining their powers, they became a superpower!  Their cereals, like Cheerios and Nesquik, became the real deal globally. A joint venture is a fantastic way to pool your strengths with others to achieve goals you can't reach alone. So dream big. Collaborate bigger. The right partnership awaits to elevate your business. Message me if you're ready to explore the possibilities!

Lo Toney recently posted https://lnkd.in/gfm5VNBr about the rise of CPG and outperformance of these companies in VC portfolios, here is another example of the trend. Super Coffee and Daily Harvest are two other examples that did well for Andrew Romans of Rubicon Venture Capital and 7BC Venture Capital. as well as Joshua B Siegel of Acronym Venture Capital. One of the biggest impediments for entrepreneurs trying to break into the sector is the need to "grease the palm" of retailers to get shelf space. Here, the big VC bucks can do wonders. #cpg #VC #BeverageIndustry #retail #consumerbrands