The Age of Collaboration is back! 3 years after the first publication, a lot has changed in startup-corporate collaboration. The term in itself became a ‘trendy’ topic of discussion, and likewise more and more corporates are experimenting their way into startup innovation. We felt it was time to get back in the field and investigate what has changed over the past 3 years, what is the current state of play, and what to expect going forward. After all, is startup-corporate collaboration a pain or a gain?

On this new study, conducted jointly with Arthur D. Little, and with the support of 8 contribution partners, we managed to outperform the number of participants from the first publication and build an even more representative sample. Over the past months, we surveyed 340 corporate and 203 startup participants from more than 70 countries. In addition, to provide in-depth insights, we discussed the topic of collaboration in 1:1 interviews with a total of 50 successful entrepreneurs and corporate innovation experts.

What can you expect from the study?

• More collaboration, more focus, more impact: startup-corporate collaboration is now a “mass market” phenomenon. We present how corporates and startups are approaching it in 2019.
• The rise of Corp-Up: commercially focused partnerships (Corp-Up) emerge as the most common and the least stopped engagement approach. We show how both sides can choose the most suitable collaboration setup.
• The way forward: the majority of corporates still shows an underwhelming level of collaboration activity and quality. We share our outlook for the next 3 years and outline recommendations on how to get closer to the ‘perfect collaborator’

As part of this report, 258 corporates have asked us for a benchmark report assessing their collaboration capabilities against peers.