Open innovation with large companies with abundant funds and human resources is one of the keys to making a big impact on society for startups. JAFCO's Business Development ("BD") department aims to grow the business of investee startups, and mainly supports the three areas of "marketing sales", "HR", and "back office", and marketing sales. The team is focused on business matching with large companies. We have contributed to the expansion of startup sales by creating opportunities for business negotiations with new customers and business partners, developing new services, and providing hearings for PMF verification.
The JAFCO BD Department held its first matching conference focusing on "collaboration" in March this year. Five investment startups and 70 large companies (of which 37 are listed companies) with a high level of enthusiasm for open innovation participated. We have also received reports that the collaboration was decided as early as one and a half months after the event, triggered by the encounter at the event. This time, Yamamoto of the JAFCO BD Department will talk about the points and circumstances of the event.
【profile】
Atsushi Yamamoto, Business Development Division JAFCO Group Co., Ltd.
Joined JAFCO Co., Ltd. (currently JAFCO Group Co., Ltd.) as a new graduate. Enrolled in the Kyushu branch office and experienced investment business in startups in the same area. Currently engaged in investment destination support and collaboration support between large companies and startups in the Business Development Division.
I want to increase the realization probability of "collaboration" between startups and large companies
Q. What have you been doing so far in the BD department?
Yamamoto The BD Department has long focused on providing sales support to portfolio companies, especially in creating business opportunities for seed and early-stage companies. For example, for UUUM we are selling to YouTubers, and for Money Forward, we are developing relationships with accounting firms. In the case of WACUL, a marketing DX business, we introduced them to 100 companies and provided them with opportunities to meet with us in order to gather feedback and evaluations from large companies before releasing their product. This not only contributed to the product market fit, but also led to a large order from the client.
Q. What made you decide to hold this matching conference?
Yamamoto We have been making efforts to provide opportunities for portfolio companies to go to bat, but of course this does not mean that going to bat will lead to 100% business negotiations and collaboration. At first glance, it seems that the two vectors are aligned: startups wanting to sell their companies and large companies seeking information about startups, but even when they meet, it is difficult to discuss the issues they want to solve through collaboration and why they are serious about solving them.
It is often said that "a translator is needed between a startup and a large company." Because both parties speak different languages, if the misalignment is not resolved, even if the collaboration progresses, it will very often not work.
We have always had a sense of this issue, so we planned this conference to provide an environment where companies can not only bring each other together, but also discuss the possibility of collaboration in order to increase the probability of collaboration.
Matching conference with a focus on "collaboration"
■ Commitment to "collaboration" (1): Creation of advance materials to understand the collaboration needs of startups
Yamamoto Matching sessions tend to focus on sales pitches from the startup side, and often do not discuss necessary information such as "why collaboration is necessary" and "what issues do you want to solve through collaboration" with a view to collaboration.
Therefore, at this conference, we, the BD staff and the startup companies, created a detailed document saying "I want to collaborate with such a company" from the stage before starting to attract customers from large companies. Since the person in charge of a large company can grasp the needs of the startup just by reading the material, it is possible to encourage "participation on the premise of collaboration" instead of "participation for the time being". This is the heart of the preparations we made after we wanted to make the inquiries between startups and large companies more meaningful.
■ Commitment to "collaboration" (2): Attract large companies with a high level of enthusiasm for open innovation
Yamamoto So far, the BD department has built a network with many large companies, such as holding seminars for those in charge of corporate planning at large companies. Among them, we would like to speak to the person in charge who is a company that is fully aware of the issues and needs and who is likely to be able to promote open innovation with startups with high enthusiasm. Thank you for your participation.
■ Commitment to "Collaboration" ③: Advice on pitch content with an eye on "Collaboration", such as clarifying the industry you want to develop
Yamamoto For the startups who will be pitching on the day, we shared an overview of the participating companies in advance and asked them to make a presentation from the perspective of 'collaboration' rather than just introducing business models and tools.
In recent years, seed investment has been increasing at our company, but most startups in the seed period are cases where "there are products, but the business partners are not fixed". Even if there is a need to develop business partners with companies that are connected to the industry that we want to approach, there are not many places where we can clearly articulate it. Therefore, if there is an industry that you want to dig deeper, I also advised to tell you concretely on the pitch.
■ Commitment to "collaboration" ④: Conduct individual interviews for 15 minutes after the pitch
Yamamoto After the pitch, we set aside time for large companies to meet with interested startups individually. 5 slots per startup, up to 15 minutes per interview. We have set the time so that we can easily resolve the desire to "listen to the story a little more" and easily connect to the next business negotiation opportunity.
As a result of focusing on the above points, the individual interview slots are almost full company-wide. A person in charge of a large company said, "I talked a little during the interview and I realized that there was a need for collaboration." After the event, we have received good reports that there are companies that are actually in business negotiations and companies that have already received orders.
BD support staff is also a true partner of the investee company
Q. What do you want the BD department to realize in the future?
Yamamoto For this conference, the quarterly 1 Based on the feedback from the startups and participating companies, we will seek to make the event even more satisfying for both parties.
It was about two years ago that the BD department created a database of business card information of large companies and started using it in earnest. In the last two years, we have focused on introducing large companies to our investment destinations, and the number of referrals has tripled. In the future, we would like to go beyond just introducing and working to contribute to the final sales. Contribution to sales is an uncontrollable area, and there are countless things to do from sales talk to product improvement, but I will face each one and think about concrete measures.
