CoVentured to help startups engage with corporates

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We believe small business is the growth engine of the Australian economy. Our Xero Australia Managing Director Trent Innes often says, if we want to create jobs and growth, then big business needs to play more of a role in helping small business succeed.

There are 2.1 million small businesses in Australia who currently employ half the Australian workforce. However, running a business is hard – and many startups will fail along the way.

At Xero we know that more still needs to be done to give startups the tools they need to grow and scale to secure long lasting market longevity. However, we often find that even the corporates that want to do more, often don’t know where to begin.

One of Xero’s customers is launching an exciting new initiative to tackle this important issue. The corporate startup accelerator Slingshot wants to connect big and small businesses through a new platform called CoVentured. CoVentured’s goal is to ultimately create more jobs.

A new idea

“We were constantly talking to small businesses who were trying to scale, and attempting to engage with corporates on their own. They were being bounced around and were never sure if they were talking to the right people. On the flip side, it became clear that corporates lacked a successful strategy on how to engage with startups,” said Slingshot Chief Executive Officer, Karen Lawson of the origins for the idea.

We knew that we could help corporates grow and reduce their number of job losses whilst at the same time helping small businesses scale. We realised that this was the recipe for economy-wide job creation. Which would lead to more income tax, more disposable income, and the prosperous growth feedback loop will kick in.

“This got us thinking. How could we better help those who weren’t ready for an accelerator program, but had great ideas and talent, connect better with the corporate contacts actually looking for help?

“This became the basis for CoVentured.”

Bringing corporates and startups together

The beauty of CoVentured lies in the sharing of large markets and nimble functionality.

“Corporate internal processes are often slow, expensive and therefore risky,” says Karen. “The more a corporate is able to nimbly interact with small business, the more likely it will be able to out-compete slow rivals.

“When corporates interact with small business, it helps smaller ventures gain access to broader opportunities. Larger firms can offer legitimacy, access to deep domain expertise, large relationships networks and distribution networks, investment, and – the most important ingredient of all – customers.”

How it works

CoVentured starts by helping both groups identify each other. Secondly, it provides an opportunity to better understand the current opportunities to engage with each other.

“The problems corporates are looking to solve are not always obvious,” Karen said. “They may be looking for a new startup with an interesting new product or service in their industry. Or it may be an internal process challenge – such in HR or logistics – that a startup could help them solve.”

The platform also aims to eliminate some of the wasted time startups spend engaging with the wrong contacts or corporates that are not yet serious about working with them.

“Real decision makers monitor the corporate profile pages on CoVentured. They then direct startups to the most appropriate contact. Lastly, Corporates use their profile to detail where in the organisation there is current appetite to engage with startups. The intention, fit and readiness to collaborate is there and it’s genuine,” Karen said.

Joining the CoVentured platform

Any small business can join the CoVentured platform to better understand and look for opportunities to engage with corporates. The possibilities include everything from simple new vendor relationships to something as interesting as co-creating a new product or service to meet an existing challenge. To find out more about how to join the platform visit CoVentured.

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