The State of CVC in 2025: Why Corporates Need to Play

nnovation inside large companies has never been easy. Bureaucracy grows, targets tighten, and people stop taking risks. Yet the need to create new products, conquer new markets and attract new customers remains as important as ever. 

Corporate venture capital sits in the middle of that tension, simultaneously facilitating VC-style growth and innovations whilst also adhering to corporate principles when done well. It lets big firms back startups, learn faster, and bring useful ideas back into the mothership. 

In 2025, the role of CVC is even more important. AI is moving rapidly, while new regulations and geopolitics are reshaping entire sectors. By leveraging the power of CVC, corporates can help scale what matters and benefit from it too.

Beating the Stereotypes

Despite what some might believe, corporate innovation is not an oxymoron. By way of illustration, there exists a now-famous business school case study centred around the multinational manufacturing conglomerate 3M. The company popularised a simple idea: give people room to explore. Since the late 1940s, it has encouraged employees to spend about 15% of their time on personal projects, with only a few guidelines and restrictions in place. Employees would innovate and present their innovations back once they were at a reasonable level for the purposes of critique and refinement. That freedom helped create products like Post-it notes and many others, which ultimately contributed significantly more to revenue growth than the estimated effects of spending the time normally. 

However, the point is not a number, but rather, the point is intent. If you want invention, you must give people space and support to try.

CVC is a modern extension of that mindset. The “lab” now lives both inside and outside the firm, but the principles are the same. You still back people, you still protect time, but you now add equity, shared road maps, and a view of markets that move faster than internal R&D alone can track.

The State of CVC in 2025 

CVC slowed with the wider venture market in 2023, and similarly picked up in 2024. However, surprisingly, the asset class cooled again in early 2025, with corporates largely entering into austerity mode amidst a flurry of technological changes across the globe. The one abundantly clear trend, though, is the priority placed on applied AI, with the sector taking up more than half of the most significant investments in Q1 of 2025, according to CB Insights. 

Global CVC reports point to a maturing industry with professional teams, clearer mandates, and more attention to governance. The signal is that CVC is no longer a side project. It is an established tool that many corporations now run with proper resource investment and process.

Several advisory houses have also noted a clear shift towards

• Fewer deals 
• Tighter fit to strategy
• More ring fencing from the parent balance sheet
• More attention to independence and speed

The common theme is discipline. Corporates want learning, access, and optionality, but they also want less noise and a clearer route to value. Additionally, with the pressure to pursue innovation rising across 2025, the reasons for corporates to pursue CVC have strengthened as well.

First, the pace of technical change is high. AI is not only a product class, it is a set of ingredients that touch every function. Startups leverage those ingredients to build recipely rapidly, iterating and improving quickly. Corporates need a seat at the table to remain relevant, and equity is one way to earn that seat.

Second, supply chains and policy are shifting. Trade rules, defence needs, and national priorities influence capital flows and adoption paths. European defence and security tech is a clear example: Funding hit records in 2024 even as broader European venture fell. Corporates in aerospace, energy, and telecoms are active around these dual-use themes.

Third, cost of capital still matters, and internal projects compete for budget. Some ideas fit better outside the core and benefit from startup speed. A small cheque into a focused team can beat a slow internal build. That does not make internal R&D less important, it just widens the toolkit available to corporates.

All of this is to simply say that CVC remains a fantastic opportunity for larger, more established players to innovate, not just for the sake of it, but to ensure their continued control of their market share amidst volatility

Breaking into CVC

CVC is a real door into venture for people with corporate backgrounds. It values skills that often get ignored in classic financial VC. If you know how large organisations buy and scale software, you bring useful context. If you have shipped products, led pilots, or worked with procurement and security teams, you can help founders cross the enterprise gap. That is scarce knowledge.

Here is what transfers well.

• Product and delivery: Experience in building or launching products maps to diligence and post investment work. You can test claims with real user needs. You can frame pilot scope, success metrics, and roll out paths that match how your industry operates.
• Go to market: Sales operations, partnerships, and channel knowledge translate to winning revenue design. You understand buying committees, budget cycles, compliance gates, and what proofs a buyer needs before a contract.
• Risk and controls: Familiarity with privacy, security, and regulatory frameworks makes your diligence sharper. You can spot risks early and help founders address them in a way that eases enterprise adoption.
• Finance and planning: Budgeting, pricing, and unit economics work inside corporates makes you good at model reviews. You can push for practical assumptions on sales cycles, gross margin, and support costs.
• Stakeholder management: Knowing how to bring legal, security, and business owners together is valuable during pilots. It can also speed up integration when there is a deal to be done.

If you are trying to move into CVC from a corporate team, build your case around those skillsets. You do not need a long deal sheet if you can show that you make startups successful with your firm, though some familiarity with VC and venture is always a plus. With this in mind, there are a number of mechanisms that you can utilise to showcase your capability of transitioning.

1. Request to take some time off as academic leave, in order to educate yourself about the finer points of the VC world, and how to merge these practices with your company. Leverage invaluable programmes like GoingVC to build up a strong network of investors and sufficient knowledge to begin the path of breaking into the CVC world.
   
   
2. Offer to support a structured pilot with a promising vendor. Write a crisp review after the pilot with clear outcomes and next steps, and then share that note with strategy and the CVC team if your firm has one. This is a real signal of intent.
   
   
3. Join internal product councils or working groups that review external tools, and treat each session like light due diligence. What problem is being solved, what does the integration path look like, what are the risks, and what are the unknowns?. Keep your notes clean and short. Over time, people will ask you to join more of these sessions if you’re adding value.
   
   
4. Volunteer for market scanning work in your area of the business. Build a simple landscape and a short memo on where the value may accrue. Make it readable by non-experts, and avoid prediction theatre. Focus on user needs and buyer behaviour. Then, present this to your internal team, and highlight some innovative steps that can be taken to 

If your company already has a CVC, ask for a secondment or a split role. Many teams welcome subject matter experts who can see around corners in a given industry. You can help with sourcing, diligence, and portfolio support. This can be a bridge to a full-time move.

On the other hand, if your firm does not have a CVC, partner with strategy or corporate development to build a light venture thesis and a pilot framework. You do not need a fund on day one. You can begin with a proof of value model. Run vendor pilots with a clear playbook, tracking success and learnings. Use those results to argue for a small option pool or a first cheque programme.

On the external side, network with early-stage funds that invest in your vertical. Offer practical help on diligence for a live deal. Share a one-page brief with real buyer insight and a short set of questions a founder should answer. Keep it useful and free of fluff - when you’re able and willing to add value, people remember that.

In interviews for CVC roles, prioritise proof where possible. Bring two short case studies - one where a vendor or partner succeeded, and one where it failed. Be clear on what you did, what you learned, and what you would change. Show that you understand incentives on both sides of the table and show that you write clearly. That alone will set you apart. 

Taking these steps will put you on the path to CVC and stand you in good stead during the early days of the career transition

What good CVC looks like

There is no single model. Still, the better programmes share a few traits.

• They have a clear purpose: Some seek long-term strategic options, whilst some want near-term partnerships and product integrations. Some also target financial returns, but strategy comes first. The purpose is written down - it guides sectors, stages, cheque size, and when to lead or follow.
• They align with business units without being captured by them: The best teams help units learn and execute on partnership. They also keep the right to pursue out-of-cycle bets that the core would never start. This balance is hard, but it is possible.
• They invest through market cycles: They avoid rushing in at the top and freezing at the bottom. That consistency buys credibility with founders and co-investors.
• They use more than money: They share distribution, data with permission, and technical support. They do not promise what they cannot deliver - startups can detect charlatans. Honesty wins.
• They measure learning: They track pilots, revenue influence, time to integration, and what was dropped and why. They capture these lessons in a way that survives staff changes.

Advisers who study CVC note the same pattern in 2025. Strategies are more deliberate, AI remains a pillar and independence from the parent grows to allow faster process and better talent retention.

What the next year could look like

Expect more discipline, fewer but better-aligned deals and a continued focus on AI, security, and the interface between software and the physical world. Expect more proof that CVCs can be good partners when mandates are clear and promises are real. Expect some consolidation. Expect a few standout successes that show why this model endures.

A slowdown in deal count early in 2025 does not mean the model is fading. It means teams are choosing with care. Global and regional reports point to a stable core with real professionalisation. If anything, the role of corporate investors grows as categories become more regulated and as buyers demand tighter security and compliance.

A closing thought for people breaking into CVC

CVC rewards real industry knowledge and the ability to get things done in complex organisations. If you can bridge founders and buyers, and if you understand how the world of VC works, you will have an edge. Take the steps highlighted across this piece, and run with them, building up a clear track record of both interest and action that forms a cohesive narrative. Then take that story to a CVC team or to a financial fund that values operators who understand how enterprise markets move.

The deeper lesson is older than any venture cycle. People produce useful ideas when they have room to explore and a path to ship. 3M showed that inside the firm many decades ago. CVC expands that surface area across the market today. Done with care, it can turn curiosity into products, revenue, and resilience for both the startup and the corporate.