What is startup scouting?

Startup scouting is the process of scanning the environment and analyzing information about potentially relevant, disruptive, or highly innovative companies that may impact an organization's operating model.

Why is startup scouting important?

Startups have the potential to produce cutting-edge solutions and disrupt business models. By scouting your environment, you’re more equipped to proactively respond, partner, or invest in startups to maintain a competitive advantage.

Venture Clienting - Manage Startup Partnerships

Why venture clienting?

Venture clienting is a relatively new model for prosperous corporate-startup collaboration. Large companies act as clients to startups, providing them with early-stage revenues, feedback, expertise development, and access to markets. In return, startups provide innovative solutions that can be integrated into the larger company's business operations. Although it poses challenges, the rewards in terms of tapping into innovation and getting a competitive edge are substantial.

Augment startup identification

Use the ITONICS Foresight software for startup scouting, scanning, and monitoring. Discover emerging startup opportunities before the competition does. AI-enabled signal feeds provide real-time information relevant to your industry, geography, and field of interest.

Save time by allowing all teams to scout on the same system and collect information about startups on the go at trade fairs or in workshops with the ITONICS Inspirator App. Discover and clip relevant web content with the ITONICS Web Clipper.

Visualize your startup landscape on the ITONICS Radar to easily identify the most relevant partners for venture clienting. Establish a rigorous selection process through collaborative ratings using experts in your organization.Research the startup ecosystem and organize all the data with ITONICS best-practice templates on one digital platform.

Learn more about ITONICS Foresight

Receive startup submissions and evaluate collaboratively

Set up effective channels for startups to contribute towards your innovative solutions. Define the challenges faced by your business units with ITONICS Ideation then use integrated matching mechanisms to easily align these to startup solutions. ITONICS External Forms allow easy idea submissions from external partners. Bring startup solution submissions together on one platform to establish your startup ecosystem.

Successful companies such as BMW and Bosch are using venture clienting to select promising startups, provide them with paid engagements and support, and facilitate their integration into the company's business operations. Open Bosch uses ITONICS as an open innovation platform, which allows them to easily access and coordinate idea submissions for defined search fields and co-create with startups, universities, and other experts.

Learn more about ITONICS Ideation

Prioritize and execute projects

Startup relationship management requires understanding the status and performance of all activities involved in the partnership. ITONICS supports phase-gate partnership management, where you move startups through a workflow and easily view their status in one view to maximize efficiency.

Bring all potential initiatives and projects into view with ITONICS Portfolio. Analyze your whole portfolio and related investments at a glance on a Matrix and Kanban Board. Prioritize startup partnerships and align your resources to the opportunities that matter most for your organization.

Move innovation projects to implementation and roll them out on one end-to-end platform integrated with your scouting data. Use ITONICS Roadmap to visualize multi-layered projects involving startups and get everyone moving in the right direction.

Learn more about ITONICS Portfolio

One solution to bring all your innovation efforts together, enrich it collaboratively and evaluate it across different views.
Learn more about the Innovation OS.

Seamlessly integrate ITONICS into your existing IT infrastructure or 3rd party tools for an enriched and more connected approach.
Learn more about the Innovation OS.

Cut through the noise with an environmental scanning engine that connects the latest developments with what’s important to your business.
Learn more about Insights.

Accelerate the realization of your innovation goals by finding relevant startups to partner with.
Learn more about Radar.

Customizable criteria enable team members and external experts to rate content in a way that combines collective knowledge.
Learn more about Foresight Features.

Capture inspirations on your phone while on the go. Now anyone, anywhere, can be a scout.
Learn more about the Inspirator App.

Manage work-in-progress, maximize flow, and prioritize your most valuable initiatives using interactive Kanban Board.
Learn more about Kanban Boards.

Incorporate external expertise from anywhere using ideation tools – for 10 or 100,000 collaborators.
Learn more about Open Innovation.

Implement phase-gate processes for evaluation and control in projects and ideation campaigns, to ensure efficient resource allocation and higher success rates.
Learn more about Portfolio Features.

Next-level venture clienting

DB Schenker’s Venture Clienting model shifts startup collaboration from push to pull, ensuring high-impact innovation pilots.

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Partnering for innovation

Bosch’s Innovation Consulting, led by Dr. Eva Mitterreiter, collaborates with digetiers to transform business models through digital innovation.

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Accelerating innovation with the Fintech Radar at DZ Bank

DZ Bank’s Fintech Radar, powered by ITONICS, delivers a real-time overview of startup partnerships, identifying innovation gaps in the financial sector.

See the results