The VentureFuel Visionaries VentureFuel

Jeff Allyn is the CEO of StudioX, a first-of-its-kind open innovation studio powered by Shell that brings a collaborative approach to reimagine energy exploration and break down the silos of traditional R&D - they call it “open exploration.” We talk about their new model and how it is accelerating the pace of innovation in climate tech and the energy industry's transformation.

What is the future of product development in an increasingly complex and fast-paced world? How can organizations keep up with rising consumer expectations, accelerating timelines for new features and products, while also increasing the amount of personalization and the fit to emerging market needs without skipping a beat? Who will help enterprises better leverage the vast and disparate unstructured data sets that they’re sitting on quickly, accurately & in a simple and intuitive way? Enter Venture to Watch: Monterey AI, a graduate of the Comcast NBCUniversal LIFT Labs Accelerator: Generative AI ’23 & YC S’22. Monterey AI is your Copilot for product insights. The platform accelerates product development by synthesizing and analyzing unstructured data from multiple sources, including user feedback, support tickets, social media mentions, and call logs, enriched by business and behavioral metrics. In this episode, we sit down with Chun Jiang, their founder & CEO, to talk all things data, AI & product development. Chun previously led products and design at companies like Unfolded (acquired by Foursquare), Scale AI, and Uber. She graduated from Cornell in 2018 and has been obsessed with building the most ambitious and delightful Data and AI products in productivity, developer tooling, and autonomous vehicles. In this conversation, we talk about Monterey AI’s unique value proposition in the marketplace, the opportunity for more insightful & data-driven product development, and what lies ahead for AI.

What is the future of celebration? How can the industry-leading global spirits company co-develop the next generation of digital products to elevate consumer experiences? Sallie Jian is the Director and head of Ventures North America at Diageo, where she oversees Diageo’s venture capital activities, including minority investments (lead, co-invest, partnerships, JVs) and Distill Ventures in North America. We talk about Fusion by Diageo, a new partnership lab to identify and build with the world’s most pioneering startups, as well as the role of corporate entrepreneurship and how startups help corporations through unique value, speed, and customized solutions.

This is a masterclass in why large corporations invest in startups. The value, the challenges. Why the core must focus on exploiting competitive advantages of today, while the corporate venture capital (CVC) arm must focus on exploring the future. The balance of exploitation and exploration, of strategic and financial opportunities, why the power law means you need to unlearn the distribution law, and how many times do you need to fold a piece of paper to reach the moon. Nicolas Sauvage is the President of TDK Ventures, the Corporate VC arm of TDK, a Japanese multinational electronics corporation. He oversees fundraising, portfolio investment strategy, and portfolio development for TDK Ventures and ranked #17 out of over 4,000 heads of corporate venturing units in the Global Corporate Venturing Powerlist 2022.

Angela Lee is an award-winning professor and former Chief Innovation Officer at Columbia Business School, where she teaches venture capital and leadership courses. Angela started her career in product management and then moved to McKinsey. She has started 4 startups and is also the founder of 37 Angels, an investing network that has evaluated over 20000 startups, invested in 100, and activated new investors through a startup investment bootcamp. She also serves as a venture partner at Fresco Capital, has been recognized by Inc. Crains and Entrepreneur, and has spoken at NASA and the White House. We talk about vetting startups, the value of corporate-startup collaboration, and why saying no is the secret to driving results.

Blooming Health announced on Sep 6, 2023, they raised an over-subscribed $4.2M seed fund to enable service providers to engage older adults and their family members. This episode was recorded almost a year before the raise, on Sep 9, 2022, and is a conversation with AARP Foundation and Blooming Health in which we walk through the innovation program's success between the two firms. It's the perfect example of tangible innovation leading to growth for all involved.