Lost In Transformation

Mastering Corporate Venture Building: Putting On Your Iron Man Suit To Speed Up Innovation

November 26, 2020 MING Labs Season 1 Episode 28
Lost In Transformation
Mastering Corporate Venture Building: Putting On Your Iron Man Suit To Speed Up Innovation
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

How does our Iron Man Suit help us create new ideas? Weixiang Wang, Vice President of New Ventures at the Economic Development Board (EDB) in Singapore, joins us on this podcast episode to talk about his passions innovation and sustainability. 
What are the benefits and pitfalls of corporate venture building? How has this unprecedented year changed the corporate venture building landscape? And how can our Iron Man Suit support innovation? Tune into this episode to find answer to these and many other questions.

Wei: (00:02)

What we are trying to really do is to work with companies to create this Iron Man suit, with the right processes, with the right resources, with the right knowhow, so that, you know, they are entrepreneurs can put on the iron man suit and create new ideas, create new products, create new services. And that's really something that, that excites me a lot.

Christine: (00:22)

Welcome to the Lost in Transformation podcast series dedicated to the complex world of Digital Transformation. We feature guests from large corporations, start-ups, consultancies and more, to shed light on the success factors around Innovation, Transformation, and adjacent topics. 
We share first-hand insights and inspiration from experts for all the intrapreneurs, entrepreneurs and anyone curious about Digital Transformation.

Christine: (00:51)

Weixiang Wang is the Vice President of New Ventures at the EDB, the Economic Development Board in Singapore. After finding his passion in innovation and sustainability, he’s now creating and investing in enterprise and sustainability ventures with corporate partners. We talked all things corporate venture building and how EDB New Ventures helps deal with common pitfalls. We hope you enjoy this episode.

Christine: (01:17)

Hi Wei, we're glad to have you as a guest here today on Lost In Transformation, and thanks so much for joining us today. And you are the Vice President of new ventures at the EDB, the Economic Development Board in Singapore, and you're creating and investing in enterprise ventures. And today we want to know more about corporate venture building in general, and also about the journey of EDB new ventures. So, maybe to start off, could you tell us a bit more about yourself and what EDB does in general for those who might not be familiar with it?

Wei: (01:50)

All right. Good morning, Christine and Sebastian. Thanks for having me. My name is Weixiang Wang, Vice President at EDB New Ventures, in the Economic Development Board. My journey to this point has been a little bit like a lettuce instead of like a traditional linear pathway. I mean, very early in my career, I've been trying new things, pushing the boundaries, usually breaking some things and learning along the way. I studied chemical engineering and economics in the University of California, Berkeley. I became very, very interested in impact and sustainability after attending a lecture by Al Gore and climate change. There was a bit of an aha moment for me. So, I was thinking to myself, you know, in many ways, if you keep to status quo, you know, things like leaving the lights and fence on using, plastics and stuff, indiscriminately, the world will become a very different place very quickly.

Wei: (02:39)

I think that was really the start of my journey, that was when I really learned that in many things that we do, we need to get out our comfort zone and do things differently. And that really applies to innovation and transformation in general as well. So after school, as you know, I never became a chemical engineer or an economist. I wanted to join the sustainability and impact sector, but back then it was a very new sector, but I was fortunate to start my career joining a new team in EDB, looking at sustainability and clean tech in general. That was really my first exposure to the startup and innovation ecosystem, working with clean tech startups. And that was when I also realized that in addition to changing behaviors, being more conscious of our ecological footprint, one other thing is going to be very, very important in change moving forward.

Wei: (03:29)

And that is technology and innovation. I think these are going to be important game changes, and I think we're going to spend a lot of time later this podcast talking about how innovation and technology works. But anyway, after working in the clean tech sector for a few years, I moved to EDBs overseas offices first in Boston, and then in Mumbai, India working primarily with the larger EDB accounts, but eventually also immersing myself in their startup and innovation ecosystems. But, before coming back to Singapore, after that, I went to take a short study break. I did my [...] fellows masters at MIT Sloan, reconnected with my two passions, sustainability and innovation. I spend a lot of time, you know, in MIT Sloan, really thinking about how, you know, different elements in an innovation ecosystem must work together to drive an innovation led economy. So after graduation, I jumped at the chance to join a new department in EDB, EDB New Ventures, to basically work with established companies in Singapore to supplement their existing innovation efforts with building their own corporate ventures. So, for the past two years, we have been very, very excited to be working on this effort, basically trying to add corporate venture building as a new element to Singapore's innovation ecosystem.

Christine: (04:42)

Right. So that's how you got exposed to basically like your two passions or found out about like those two passions, and could combine them and then move into the world of corporate venture building. If you were to describe what is corporate venture building actually to you?

Wei: (04:58)

So, to me, corporate venture building is the creation of new businesses by companies. So, the way I like to look at it is that innovation cannot happen in isolation. So, in Singapore, we see companies, you know, forming R & D partnerships with the universities, with the research institutions, with other companies. And also obviously increasingly with startups. When it comes to companies, working with startups, I'm seeing an evolution. In the first phase of the evolution I see companies, you know, basically working with startups to address internal problem statements. A great example is, well known in Singapore is the Rolls Royce data innovation challenge where, you know, Roll Royce basically welcomes the startup community to work on aviation datasets to solve problems like, optimizing flight services, implementing predictive maintenance of aircraft engines, helping pilots and flight panels, planners make better decisions. So, that's really the first phase of the evolution.

Wei: (05:54)

In the second phase, we see that besides working with startups to address internal problem statements, we also starting to see companies set up corporate venture capital funds. So, they are CVC funds to invest and partner with startups more strategically. So, a couple of good examples in Singapore will be like the Singtel Innov8, ST Engineering Ventures. The are very strategic CVCs that look at both financial and strategic returns, when they partner with startups. I see corporate venture building as a further extension of that, you know, basically as a third phase of the evolution. So, instead of just partnering or investing in startups, we see companies looking ahead to think about why not and why can't we build our own corporate ventures, right? So, the classic example that we all know about here is, you know, Amazon, the eCommerce company basically leveraging the strengths in computing infrastructure to launch Amazon web services.

Wei: (06:49)

And we all know how these two businesses of Amazon have been propelling their growth in the stock market as well. Closer to home, you know, even before EDB New Ventures came about, we see, you know, the Sea Group is actually leveraging its technical expertise and access to customers from their Garena games business, to launch Shopee, a totally different business, e-commerce marketplace about five years ago. And in just five years, Shopee is now the largest eCommerce platform in Southeast Asia and Sea Group is one of the largest public company in Southeast Asia by market cap as well. 
So, more recently we are starting to see more such efforts. So, for instance, [...] launching a mobile gaming platform to tap into the group, growing mobile gamers in the region. We also see a multinational, you know, engineering and technology company, leveraging its sensor and IOT capability to launch a new business, providing digital and IOT solutions to aquaculture farmers in the region. So, these are some examples of corporate venture building, and we see that. And these are what keeps us excited and going, as we see new ways that companies are innovating and finding new drivers of growth.

Christine: (07:58)

These are exciting examples to see how, like these new ventures come to life. And, why are organizations actually thinking about corporate venture building in general? Like what benefits, for example, does it bring?

Wei: (08:11)

I think, when we take a step back and look at this from a company's perspective for any company, especially the large companies, they are best basically a few key ways that they look for growth, right? That could be the usual inorganic growth such as a merger and acquisition. I mean, great examples would be like Facebook acquiring Instagram or Microsoft acquiring LinkedIn. Besides MNA that could also be, you know, the traditional organic growth basically innovating at their core business. This could be, you know, new product features, new iteration of a service offering new products within a product family. I mean, a good example here would be, you know, Apples, they're always developing new variants on the iPhones. And also, I mean, more recently developing the iPad and the Apple watch. So I see inorganic and core innovation as one part of how companies can grow and they continue to remain very, very critical to a company's growth plan.

Wei: (09:05)

But what we see is that companies are starting to realize that if they can innovate like startups and that's a big if, they can definitely help better manage disruptions. It could also lead to a new form of growth. So for instance, according to CB insights, they are more than 200 or so unicorns in the world with a combined valuation or more than $1.2 trillion dollars. So, even for very large companies able to add a few billions in enterprise value is very, very significant. But, as I mentioned earlier, corporate venture building is not easy and there are many pitfalls and that's really where EDB new ventures is set up. And we'd like to work with established companies in Singapore.

Christine: (09:44)

So, you already mentioned that there are, of course also some pitfalls and it's not that easy. Even though you mentioned already the advantages and benefits, what are maybe some pitfalls you might encounter with corporate venture building?

Wei: (09:58)

So, this is how I think about it. Think about, you know, any large companies today, and imagine a number of startups, they are trying to work with them. So what are the startups after? So, that's how I would think about it. Usually the startups are trying to sell a large company something, right? They want the large companies to become a lead customer. But more importantly, what we realize is that they are trying to iterate their products with the large companies to try to better understand where the pain points are, so that they can develop a better solution. I mean, they are also usually after things like data, distribution channels, infrastructure, manufacturing capabilities, market domain, regulations, so and so forth. So, companies start to realize that, Hey, we have all this great stuff, right. And startups are coming to us. And yet when the startups are creating value and increasing in value, the large companies are being disrupted themselves.

Wei: (10:50)

So, that's a very interesting phenomenon. And that's what got a lot of companies thinking about how can they build their own startups, but it's not easy as we have been discussing. Right. So one of the most common pitfall that we see is that large companies tend to use metrics they're meant for businesses that have reached scale, right? So, they measure revenue, they measure their EBITDA, they measure their cash generation and so on. And this metrics are usually not very meaningful for earlier stage companies. They are still looking for product market fit or are just starting to scale, right? So, the classic example here is as many people would know would be how Blockbuster failed to successfully replicate a Netflix DVD mail subscription service. So, when Netflix came in to play Blockbuster thought to themselves, so why can't we do that? And they did, right? So Blockbuster did launch a similar omni-channel service called Total Access.

Wei: (11:40)

And that has an additional advantage of what Netflix used to do, right? Where customers can not just mail the DVD back, but they could in fact, just bring a DVD to a Blockbuster store in exchange for a new one. That created so much more value than what Netflix could have create, because they don't have brick and mortar stores. And the Total Access was really adding users very, very rapidly, but what happened next was basically Blockbusters shut it down. And the reason was they realized that, Hey, when I add a new subscriber, I'm actually losing some money. So, why would I want to do that? Not knowing and not thinking ahead that if they reach a certain scale, there will be a virtuous cycle, and they can start making money from there. So, metrics is very, very important. And again, metrics for existing established businesses are very different from metrics that we need to measure earlier stage startups. And this is what a lot of companies tend to struggle with.

Christine: (12:34)

Definitely. And how did then EDB New Ventures actually came into the picture in the first place? What was the status quo at EDB that kicked off this discussion?

Wei: (12:44)

So, that's also a very interesting journey that began before I joined the EDB New Ventures. So, at EDB, you know, we work closely with large companies to invest into Singapore, creating jobs in areas such as manufacturing, in R & D, in headquarters services and activities. And soon we realized that companies are coming to us to think about hi, Hey EDB, could we innovate together? How do we launch and create new businesses together? And that's also, we see that as part of the evolution of EDB as well, where we realize that we also need to treat our products and services as we work with our customers to think about how we can help them on this journey. So, when we look at our tool kit and we realize that our existing tool kit are not sufficient, that's when we start to think more broadly and expensively about how might we, if I'm given a fresh start, think about working with our large companies in Singapore on creating new businesses.

Wei: (13:43)

So, that was where we behave a little bit like a startup, right? So we try to understand where the pitfalls and the painpoints are. So, we talked a little bit about the metrics. We also saw a few other pitfalls or pinpoints such as, you know, companies taking a relatively piecemeal approach to building ventures. So, as we all know, building a startup and also a corporate venture is a long and arduous journey and strong commitment is needed. So, it requires management attention, a clear mandate, resources, both monetary and people, right? Otherwise there'll be constant starts and stops. So, what we realized is that a lot of companies, not just in Singapore, but globally, do not have an end to end process for the innovation or venture building journey. So, when we first started, we once had an executive, who told us actually, there's a lot of commitment.

Wei: (14:30)

There's a lot of resources in their company, but what happened was that many ideas tend to suffer from what he calls death by POC, right? They do so many POCs. And for the ones that work there isn't a process for them to bring that forward into, you know, maybe putting a team together, funding it, and trying to launch a product. So, these two big pinpoints are something that we started to think about how we can meaningfully address that from the EDB's standpoint. So, what we do was, you know, we realized that the setting up the processes is very important, setting up the right metrics is very, very important. So, what we do is then we started to learn ourselves from the best out there. We try to look at how Amazon does it, how some of the technology companies do it.

Wei: (15:12)

We talk to many enablers in the ecosystem, corporate venture, building studios, trying to understand what are some of the processes and practices that make sense. And what we do then is then we try to share our learning, share our expertise with companies that are interested. So, while the journey is new and we don't have all the answers, we try to advocate and explain to them what are some of the key pieces that are important to this. So, arising from this, we also set up the Singapore Corporate Venturing community on LinkedIn, as we continue to learn, we also use the community to share our knowledge. We also see companies using it to compare those and share best practices. Part of the efforts of this company is also, you know, running masterclasses both physically and virtually to bring in, you know, experienced venture studios or companies that have done this before to share about the approaches. So, anybody tuning in, who is interested to be part of this community do get in touch with me over LinkedIn, I will add you to the community as well. So, this is just one of the many ways that we are trying to level up the ecosystem in Singapore and try to play our part in corporate venture building.

Christine: (16:19)

Wow. That's super impressive to hear, all the work that you're doing there. And do you have like a bigger purpose for the journey of EDB New Ventures? Is there anything that keeps you going?

Wei: (16:34)

So, this is something that excites the entire team in EDB New Ventures, basically what we are trying to do is to build a new pillar in Singapore innovation economy.  So, as corporate venture building, we strongly believe can be a driver moving forward, because we believe that corporates and large companies land a lot of advantages to earlier stage companies. But more importantly, what really excites us is, you know, how do we create new job opportunities for Singaporeans? So, if you think about it in Singapore, there are many professionals, engineers, you know, financial, people working in a finance department, working in supply chain, in marketing. They have a wealth of experience and many of these people and have a little bit of a hustle or entrepreneurial spirit in them. That's how I like to think about it.

Wei: (17:22)

And if given the right processes and approach, we do believe that we can harness their experience and knowledge and turn them into corporate entrepreneurs. So the way I think about it is, you know, a lot of companies may have this latent, experts with a lot of passion about ideas and ability to create new businesses. So if companies, if EDB New Ventures can work with companies to create what I also like to term an Iron Man suit, that you can put these people in and they can really become, you know, I guess they wouldn't become like rockstar entrepreneurs, like Larry Page or Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk, but they can do a decent job in creating new ideas, new products, new services. And what we are trying to really do is to work with companies to create this Iron Man suit, with the right processes, with the right resources, with the right know-how, so that, you know, the entrepreneurs can put on the Iron Man suit and create new ideas, create new products, create new services.

Wei: (18:20)

And that's really something that excites me a lot. And I think that's what is starting to excite companies quite a bit as well, because this gives them a way to tap onto the latent innovation culture. The latent know-how, the latent talent in their companies. They're not going to have a captain Marvel or Clark Kent in their organizations. Most of the time these guys will be out there creating the next Google or the next Tesla, but they're going to have pretty good talent, right. And giving them Iron Man suit will really turbo boost them and give them a new Avenue to create growth, not just for themselves individually, also for the companies that they work in. And that creates new pathways and job opportunities for corporate professionals in Singapore. So, that is the second thing that keeps us going. So, at a high level, creating, you know, a new pillar in our innovation economy, the more micro and most specific thing, creating new job opportunities for Singaporeans.

Christine: (19:15)

Cool. I like the analogy of the Iron Man suit and helping companies in that regard. Can you share maybe one or two examples of concrete cases or ventures, of how you help them?

Wei: (19:28)

So, one great example I'd like to share is a partnership that we have with Schneider Electric. It's a French technology engineering company, mainly in the energy business. We entered into this partnership, because we could see that the CEO and a Chief Innovation Officer are very committed to innovation, not just in their core business, but also in adjacent areas of what Schneider Electric calls innovation at the edge. So, they focus on two sides of innovation, innovation a call and innovation at the edge. And more, most recently we just completed a validation sprint where the validation team had to validate an idea and make an investment pitch. What we also like about Schneider Electric was that they had a very robust process in terms of how that validation would take place. They also have resources ring fence, such that after the investment pitch, they can quickly make a go, no go decision, whether to take a next step. So that, you know, again, to my earlier point, ideas don't just die, because there's no next step.

Wei: (20:31)

So, within 10 days Schneider Electric basically could commit to an investment to launch the venture and provide a sufficient need long runway for the validation team that eventually then became the founding team of this venture to do a product and launch in market. So, EDB New Ventures, we were along with them in that journey, we worked with them to set up a call team in Singapore to manage this process. We worked with them to hire in some of these members of the validation team. Some of them could become the founding team. One of them will become the founding CEO of the new venture. We also participated in the validation sprint. So one of my colleague joined the validation sprint for the full 12 weeks as part of the member of the validation team working with the Schneider team and some of the founding entrepreneurs that have hired in to validate this idea.

Wei: (21:18)

So, what we brought to the table really was our network and our understanding of the domain, because for companies that's trying to go into something newish, maybe at adjacent or in the Schneider Electric case at the edge, they may not have all the networks and the domain knowledge. So, what we could do is the full time and validation team member from EDB could tap onto the wider EDB, to domain and networks. So, of the several hundreds of customer interviews that they did, I think about quarter of that came from the EDB network. So, that's how we try to bring value to our partners. We are also very happy to be along them when the venture is eventually launch. So now that, Schneider Electric have been committed to funding and investing into the venture, we are now also evaluating whether we could also provide resharing capital to a joint investment into the venture, so that it will be very exciting.

Wei: (22:11)

And if this new venture grow to become, say the Amazon Web Services of Schneider Electric, then I mean, we'll be very, very proud to say that, you know, EDB and Singapore have played a strong role in helping them do that. Another example that maybe I could share would be, you know, what we have with Procter and Gamble's entrepreneurship unit known as Growth Works. So, Growth is also committing significant resources in terms of monetary, but also dedicated teams or intrapreneurs to learn, to run experiments and sprints with the goal of creating new brands and new business models. So, a key role that we play here is to be a neutral and fraying sounding board for the ventures they are pitching, right? Because, these are intrapreneurs, they are being funded by Procter and Gamble. So, sometimes having a neutral party there to say that, Hey, this is actually a really good idea, right, instead of just hearing it from their internal innovation head, having that neutral party there becomes very important both for the entrepreneur, but also for the internal sponsors for this project. Because now they know that it's not just, they themselves will say it's a good idea, you know, a neutral party and honors party to be a sounding board is also quite powerful. So, this impartial yet insightful perspectives, are also what companies find very valuable.

Christine: (23:27)

Super interesting to hear how much you support and how much you work together with the companies. And with EDB New Ventures being around for a little while already, what would you say is your biggest learning down the road?

Wei: (23:41)

I think the biggest learning is we cannot stop learning. I think we have been around for a little bit over two years and we were in stealth mode, so to speak before that as well. And what we realized is that we need to always go out to talk to our companies, to try to understand their pain points, just like a startup. We can only add value, if we truly understand the customer pain points and develop products and solutions that address their pain points. So, as we talk to more and more companies and different companies in what our broadly call different segments, we are starting to hear different sets of pain points. And that's where we continue to go back to the drawing board and think about, are there products and services or solutions that EDB New Ventures can do to try to address the pain points there, and hence add value to them and also to the ecosystem, so that there is also a very exciting thing, right? So, we are not static where we say, this is how we're going to do things. We have to keep innovating and thinking about what is really needed, because at the end of it, EDB New Ventures is like a startup within EDB. We, as I mentioned earlier, we are trying to do things in a different way to think about how we can innovate with companies. So, the moment that we ourselves stop innovating as a startup, I think that is where we would have felt, so we must keep learning.

Christine: (25:00)

Right. I think that's a very important point you're addressing, to always go out, talk to the people, you know, address their pain points. And now looking at the future of EDB New Ventures, is there anything that you're in specific looking forward too?

Wei: (25:15)

Yes. I think we are so early in our journey that we are always looking forward to one of the ventures that we have been involved in being successful. So, we have seen that even before we came into existence. Again, the great example is Shopee becoming very, very successful. So, what we would like to see in five years time, that we have more of such new corporate ventures being launched in Singapore, and creating a new form of growth engines for the Singapore economy. So, in say in 10, 20 years, if we have see a hundred more unicorns in Singapore, we'd like to be able to say that we play a part in creating some of them. And also more importantly, working of our companies to create some of them again, because we believe that innovation and, you know, the startup journey is not exclusive to startups. We believe that large companies have the role to play and given the right Iron Man suit again, I think they could be very successful in that as well. So, really thinking about different, multiple pathways to creating more unicorns and more innovation and more successful startups in Singapore. So, that's why we try to measure ourselves by, and I think the journey is out. So, I think we look forward to five years later and we are quite confident that we will play an important role in that journey.

Sebastian: (26:28)

What changes have you observed in the corporate venture building landscape in 2020 given everything that's going on this year?

Wei: (26:37)

So, something that impressed me very much is that as we all know, with the Corona virus, COVID-19, the travel and hospitality sector was one of the most hit sector. I mean, not just in Singapore, but globally, but what really heartens me was that we see that companies in this sector, obviously some of them are struggling, but those that are struggling less or have some kind of space and some resources, they are persevering with corporate venture building. They are pushing away ahead to think about, okay, maybe COVID is accelerating the disruption in my sector. How can I future proof myself and corporate venture building is one of the ways that they are doing that. We have seen companies in this sector while they have to take the very painful path of maybe even laying off people or closing down sort of certain divisions, but many of them are also continuously investing into new areas, and some of the employees are able to translate into these new areas as well. So, that or something that really heartens me, that even in a crisis, companies are not giving up. They are still pushing ahead. And, we always use this as a good example for some of the companies that in fact, even less affected that they should certainly take advantage of this opportunity to think about what corporate venture building and what innovation overall means for them. So, that is what we have observed and we hope to see and encourage.

Sebastian: (28:02)

And then another thing that I was wondering about, given the maturity of the ecosystem that you observe in Singapore in terms of corporate venture building, where are we today? Is it like only a very small percentage of innovators that actually do that? Is it already a larger group of early adopters? Is it already mainstream? How many corporates are really engaged in this activity and what's the maturity?

Wei: (28:28)

I think, interestingly again, to your earlier question, I think 2020 really is a big step change for a lot of companies. So, if you think back to 2018, when we first started in 2019, where quite frankly, we were struggling quite hard in terms of getting companies to think about it, but I think 2020 really moved the needle. And we have a few what we call strategic partnerships with Procter & Gamble, with Schneider Electric, and with Bosch to try to do this at scale, but we are also start seeing a lot of interest on opportunistic ventures that companies are building. For instance, I mentioned Singtel launching a mobile gaming platform. For instance, one of the multinational launching IOT and digital solution for aquaculture.

Wei: (29:12)

So, some of these things are happening, but the crisis, I felt accelerated this a little bit where more companies are now thinking, okay, maybe this is the time to think about how we can do things differently. So, in fact, in the last few months we see a little bit of a momentum in terms of interests coming to us, both in terms of having ventures that have been launched, and one thing as to see if we can be part of that, or even companies thinking about building the entire system, right. Building the Iron Man suit, right? So, they are talking to us to, Oh, Hey, how can you help us have this conversation for management? How do we educate the rest of the organizations around, how do we set up the resources? How do we set up the right metrics?

Wei: (29:55)

How do we think about how to even ideate? So, we are starting to receive a lot of inbound interests along the whole spectrum of corporate venture building. So, we are quite excited. And we think that, 2020 could be a big change. And in terms of momentum and 2021 more companies in Singapore will be willing to go on this journey. The other proxy I have is, our Singapore Corporate Venture Building community, that I mentioned. So, when we first started, holding master classes and events, we have tens of people right. Now, we are receiving interest from hundreds and maybe close to a thousand people. So, that again is a signal in terms of how far the ecosystem has come. And we continue to do outreach to try to encourage the community, to think about what corporate venturing building means to them. And if they're interested, we'll be there to help them along in that journey. I think that's it for me as well.

Christine: (30:45)

Perfect. Wei, thanks so much for taking the time and for guiding us along the success story of EDB New Ventures and also sharing how you basically help put on those Iron Man suits and support companies. It's been a really nice chat and, thanks again.

Wei: (31:02)

Thanks Christine and Sebastian for having me. Very excited to be here and to share our journey with everybody. 

Christine: (31:08)

Thank you for listening to this episode of “Lost in Transformation”. If you enjoy our podcast, please subscribe to our channel and leave us a review on iTunes. Join us next time for another episode of our podcast.

The three evolutionary phases of building new businesses
Corporate venture building as a new driver for growth
Why you should use different metrics for measuring early-stage startups and for matured businesses
Building a CVC ecosystem and sharing best practices with the community
Empowering entrepreneurial talent by providing know-how, processes, and resources to build innovation
Venture examples that the EDB supports
Wei's biggest takeaway: To keep on learning
The state of maturity of corporate venture building in Singapore