E599 | EUCVC Summit 2025: Florian Noell (PwC) and Gina Domanig (Emerald Technology Ventures): LP Investing as a Smart Starting Point for CVC

0:00Limited Partner LP Investing is emerging as the smartest entry point for corporate exploring venture offering access to deal flow, market insights, and the inner workings of top-performing funds. Gloria Nolv, PwC, and Gina Dominic, Emerald Ventures, share how strategic LP positions can unlock long-term advantage, build internal conviction, and shape smarter direct investment strategies down the line. So, here we are. This is, you know, Gina, just for you to know, the first time I heard about Emerald Technology Ventures was in July 2007. So I followed you all the way to here. I always love what you contribute with.

0:53But starting over with you, Florian, you have also been in this game for a very, very long time. Could you explain a little bit why PWHC chose LP investing as part of your corporate venturing activities? Yes, of course. And thanks for having me today. Before we started investing in startups and venture, we created our ecosystem strategy. So we have a strong belief in innovation and business ecosystems. And we developed a strategy where to go, where to invest, and sometimes even more important, where not to invest. and then if you go into this game yes we started with some first direct investments but if you really want to accelerate building an ecosystem a reliable ecosystem we have chosen to become LP investor at this time of course to meet the right founders but of course looking at the neighborhood as well so we We looked at the investment criteria of the funds, of course.

1:57We looked at the track record of the AGPs, but we looked who are the other LPs alongside us and do we enter a good ecosystem, a good neighborhood for our... But you also have the founder DNA, right? You were part of the German Venture Capital Association and so forth, right? Has that been part of shaping the strategy? Yes, I think that that must be part of every CVC strategy because if you want to convince the best founders Because to become a shareholder, you have to look through their eyes, right? And have to be a strong partner understanding the founders game. And maybe that's helpful for what I'm doing today.

2:36Gina, over to you. So I knew you from the direct investment side. Today, when people ask me who is Gina, and now I need to be careful, right? Because I say you are the best VC as a service provider in Europe by far. So with that, without saying anything, when you structure your LP relations with the corporates, how do you assure to meet financial and strategic goals in this? So maybe because it is a bit complicated what we do, right? We have funds where we have LPs. Most of them are industrial corporates. and we do manage the CVC for four corporates, right? Our funds are measured on financial performance, but we have to respect that our customers are not really measuring us on financial performance.

3:31They're measuring us on how we can help them to achieve their strategic goals, right? The mandate's even more extreme, right? We have to really, you know, we kind of go into those investments saying, okay, how can we make this as, you know, is not as damaging as it would be, right, as they want it to be almost. So I think, you know, we structure it so that we've got a lot of sector specialists in our team. Our team is now 56 people, half of them with strong technical backgrounds. And we're really structured with our corporates. We force them to create strategic KPIs, to commit to those strategic KPIs.

4:11and then we've got you know with our sector specialists we've got a deal flow platform we review over 3 000 deals a year so you have to obviously it's a lot of information you have to structure it in a way that is easily accessible and efficient for the corporates we have monthly calls so you know if i think 25 years ago we used to just lob over an excel sheet once a month now we have a very clear platform people can go in there on a daily basis even though they can articulate or let's say even if they would articulate their strategic goals and we say we can bring the horse to water but we can't make him drink right so we found that often our counterparts which are often the cvc guys they were struggling to actually get their business units on board.

5:02So what now we've, in the past few years, we've been running what we call sprints, which are around a very specific challenge within the corporate, you know, data centers, or it could be, you know, plastic recycling, whatever the specific challenge is. And we structure it in an eight-week program, let's say three hours a week. We, you know, go through the process of identifying the challenge, articulating it, scouting the startups, whether they're portfolio companies of us are not. That strategic tie that you're building right there, is that then also what has helped you through these downturns, right?

5:36I started out by, you know, 3.7 year average lifetime of a CVC. Is that then that strategic tie that eases the pain? They have to, ultimately, our counterparts, they have to be achieving strategic impact within their corporation. Otherwise, they do risk getting shut down. And at the beginning, when they start out, they resist because they don't like to be measured. But we always tell them, look, this is like a short-term euphoria you're in. You will get hit if you don't deliver strategic impact. Florian, over to you, right? So LP investing, right? It's not for fun. It's just not, you know, allocating money to GPs out there.

6:17It's, you know, it is also tying the corporates a little bit closer to the startups, right? So beyond that capital, how can you enable innovation ecosystems in that? Yes, so I think from this perspective, we have an advantage being a big four consulting firm. We cannot only provide access to our company, we can provide access to more or less all corporates across the globe for startups being part of a fund portfolio. and for this reason, like Gina mentioned, I think the key question is how can we access the portfolio of a fund we are invested in and how can we collaborate? And of course, it must be driven by the fund management and by the founders.

7:02The founders have to know who are the LP investors in the fund. The fund managers have to create an understanding of the strengths and opportunities a corporate LP is providing and then you can support selected startups and we support them, of course, with access. Access to clients mainly, access to knowledge, access to other markets. And, of course, sometimes we could be becoming their partner, but that's not the purpose of doing those. And how do you build the trust in all of that? How do you get closely connected with these GPs and the startups in the process? Yeah, so I think one learning everyone is doing while not working with Gina maybe who is really really committed to to deliver value to the corporate LPs everybody has to learn that you have to go and ask right you can't expect that the GP is calling you every week and providing good proposals like meet this startup meet that one and that the GP's main objective is to bring good financial returns to all LPs and maybe next to corporate LPs there are financial ones and so on typically, right?

8:20So you have to set up a meeting structure or access to the deal flow or whatever the best thing is to do it with a single fund to have a regular exchange and to meet the best founders inside the portfolio to end, maybe if you can really do it in a good way, you do not only meet the best founders in the portfolio where they invested in, you meet the best founders within the deal flow where they do not invest in. Last question and short answers. Gina, your depth in cleantech and governance is unique. Florian, PVC brings scales and industry knowledge. How do each of your models reflect different and complementary ways corporate can use LP investing?

9:02I think with us it's the sector expertise and the flex term fund structure that we have where they can recycle. So we don't have to go back to them every five years and ask them for more money. Juan? Yeah, so I think it's really complementary because providing this access to corporate clients globally is something we can deliver. and in general, going back to this strategic value creation, right, everybody is looking at 1 ,000 companies per year, some at 500, like you, 3 ,000 I've learned, right, and you will do five investments, 10 investments, but if you want to provide value creation to your C-level, you have to provide 10 partnerships, five M &A acquisitions and stuff like that and that's how this collaboration can really work.

9:46Grab a hold of Lauren out there, he will explain more. Thank you so much both for joining me on stage. Thank you.