Startup dealflow for Helve
Business case definition and solution scouting for a leading Baltic corporate venturing program
Helve, a leading Baltic open innovation agency organises several venturing programs for its corporate clients. One of the programs, Future Hub, needed help with attracting growing technology startups to participate the program, and ultimately collaborate with 3 large enterprises. For 2 months I worked with the Future Hub program managers and innovation teams from the 3 enterprises to define business cases that needed a solution, map out potential tech solutions to tackle them, and reach out to startups with a fitting solution.
With my support, the Helve team was able to clarify the problem-solution scope of their enterprise partners’ business cases, identify 100s of fitting startups for the cases, and reach out to them successfully. As a result, each of the cases in the program received interest from 10s of startups with relevant solutions, and commercial pilot projects were kicked off at the end of the program.
“Miikka is a great partner, highly reliable and always delivering in spades. He's passionate about open innovation and with his practical experience can consult both: startups and enterprises to achieve the goals set."
-Marija Rucevska, CEO & co-founder of Helve
How did we achieve this?
The project started with sync meetings with the Future Hub program leads, and interviews with the enterprises innovation teams to understand the problem & solution scope of each business case they’ve ideated for the upcoming program. The enterprises came from 3 very different industries (insurance, waste management, grocery retail) with business cases including automation, circular economy and e-commerce. In collaboration with the teams, I was able to identify several potential technology solutions for each business case, and a generic startup stage profile including funding status, customer traction, and team composition. Using this information, I leveraged startup databases such as Crunchbase and startup accelerator websites to build a list of prospective participants for the program with fitting solutions. Finally, I used email automation tools (Hunter.io), Linkedin and remote meetings to contact startup founders and get them to apply for the program.
- Corporate venturing business case definition
- Technology solution mapping
- Startup dealflow sourcing