Venture clienting, the strategic cooperation between established companies and startups, is becoming increasingly popular. Numerous corporations have now established their own units for this purpose. In Hamburg, OTTO, Fielmann and HELM AG are successful examples of this.
OTTO DOCK 6
The retail group OTTO was one of the first Hamburg-based companies to become intensively involved in venture clienting. With its OTTO DOCK 6 unit, it endeavours to create synergies between innovative startups and departments within its own company and to scale these up. For example, artificial intelligence has recently taken over renegotiations in the internal purchasing process for suppliers. The AI comes from the Latvian startup Pactum. Startups from Hamburg have also already benefited from the collaboration. traceless developed shipping bags made from compostable plastic substitutes for OTTO, and a partnership with WILDPLASTIC, which recycles plastic waste into packaging, has been in place since 2021.
Fielmann Ventures
Eyewear retailer Fielmann is an attractive partner for startups in many respects. With Fielmann Ventures, it has created a unit that employs a team of around 20 specialists with expertise in computer science, optical physics, mathematics, strategy, business development and finance. Fielmann Ventures acts as a venture capital provider, incubator, accelerator, strategic partner and research unit. And there is a department directly at Fielmann that deals solely with venture clienting. In any case, however, the focus is limited to start-ups that directly contribute to the specialist areas of the optician chain, such as technological innovations in the field of vision and hearing aids, but also production, logistics, law and customer service.
HELM HORIZON
HELM AG may be less well-known to the general public than OTTO or Fielmann, but the company enjoys a global reputation in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. The corporation is active in over 30 countries on four continents, making it a promising address for startups with internationalisation ambitions. The centure clienting unit HELM HORIZON has been in existence for a good six months and recently announced its first cooperation. The platform of the London-based startup CarbonChain enables companies to track and reduce their emissions in the supply chain. HELM aims to accelerate its decarbonisation in this way.
