State of play: Energy, deep tech and investment trends shaping 2026

00:00:02: Empowering Tomorrow, the podcast from VERUND X.

00:00:12: A corporation can't make 20 bets into the different technologies.

00:00:16: A corporate VC can make a number of bets.

00:00:20: Energy demand was not growing fast until AI and now it's becoming a real problem.

00:00:27: It's all about the Entrepreneurs. All progress in society

00:00:32: starts with the entrepreneurs who are dreaming a future that does not exist.

00:00:37: Welcome to Empowering Tomorrow, the podcast from VERBUND

00:00:41: X. Together with top experts

00:00:45: we explore the future of energy in Europe.

00:00:47: We talk about innovations, technologies, and bold initiatives that are already

00:00:53: shaping a sustainable energy future today.

00:00:56: How can we reach a climate neutral Europe?

00:00:59: How can we close the innovation gap?

00:01:01: These are the questions we'll tackle in this podcast.

00:01:05: My name is Franz Zöchbauer.

00:01:07: I'm the managing director for VERBUND X, the innovation and venture unit of

00:01:10: VERBUND, Austria's leading energy company.

00:01:14: Let's get started.

00:01:19: Hello and welcome to Empowering Tomorrow, the podcast from VERBUND X.

00:01:24: I'm Franz Zöchbauer, Managing Director of VERBUND X, the Innovation and Venture Unit of VERBUND.

00:01:30: With this episode, we are starting in a new season called What's Ahead in 2026.

00:01:36: In this season, we look one step forward.

00:01:39: We talk about technologies, investments, and partnerships that will shape energy

00:01:43: innovation in 2026 and the coming years.

00:01:46: Today's episode is a very special one for me.

00:01:50: My guest and I know each other from the Stanford Executive Program and we spend

00:01:54: intensive weeks together talking about leadership, technology, and impact.

00:01:58: So this conversation today is, um, feels both personal

00:02:02: and future oriented.

00:02:03: So I'm very happy to welcome Nicolas Sauvage, president of TDK Ventures, here with us.

00:02:08: Thank you, Franz.

00:02:09: It's uh.

00:02:10: Very special to be with you and uh, it's nice you mentioned about the

00:02:14: SEP, the Stanford program we did together for six weeks and got to

00:02:18: know each other, but we keep in touch.

00:02:20: And now I'm seeing you becoming really strong and, uh, very

00:02:24: impactful in corporate venturing.

00:02:26: And, um, thanks Nicolas, that you take the time and that we, um,

00:02:29: speak today in Vienna, um, about the future of innovation and energy.

00:02:34: TDK Ventures, uh, is a global corporate venture capital firm, investing in Deeptech

00:02:38: startups with a strong focus on turning breakthroughs into scalable impact.

00:02:43: And in, uh, early 2026, uh, Nicolas became the chair of the GCV Leadership

00:02:48: Society, the most important global community for corporate venturing leaders.

00:02:52: So, congratulation Nicolas, to that position on the global level.

00:02:56: Thank you very much.

00:02:57: It's a big honor and a big responsibility.

00:03:00: So today we talk about, um, what's truly on the agenda for 2026, but let's start

00:03:05: with a personal contest and positioning.

00:03:07: So Nicolas, maybe you can share to the audiences on your personal

00:03:11: journey to venture capital.

00:03:12: I know it's started in, uh, at the Stanford Executive Program, but,

00:03:16: uh, I'm looking forward to hear what really brought you into the business.

00:03:19: Yeah.

00:03:21: Uh, I never planned to do corporate VC.

00:03:24: If anything, it came as a, from the classroom.

00:03:27: As you remember, Jasper Berendsen was our professor talking about exploitation

00:03:31: and exploration and how exploration is typically very, very fragile inside

00:03:36: the company because exploitation i

00:03:39: the bread and butter.

00:03:40: This is what the company needs to do and to deliver on.

00:03:44: And Jasper Berendsen has this really nice analogy of exploration, is a tiny

00:03:49: helicopter that flies to another peak in a cloudy day and comes back with

00:03:53: information with very little cost to know where to go and where not to go.

00:03:58: While exploitation is that mountain you are already on the

00:04:01: corporation trying to go to that

00:04:02: top of the mountain.

00:04:04: And so I remember when we had this class that night, I went to check

00:04:08: online tdk.com and I realized it didn't have a corporate VC.

00:04:12: And at that time it was a 83 years old company and it never had a CVC.

00:04:17: And you can imagine.

00:04:19: Um,I must have been quite naive in a way, because I'm not Japanese.

00:04:23: I don't speak Japanese, I'm not in the headquarter.

00:04:26: I came from an acquisition one year earlier, and yet I thought

00:04:30: I could start a corporate VC for TDK.

00:04:33: And, um, and you're still highly motivated doing corporate, uh, ventures and for TDK.

00:04:37: So what's keeps you motivated?

00:04:39: Uh, during all the years, I, I, I think that what I love the most.

00:04:44: Is impact.

00:04:46: But one of the things that keeps me motivated is we get a chance

00:04:50: to create a corporate VC from first Principles, what makes sense

00:04:55: versus what has been done before.

00:04:57: And I think if I think about corporate venturing, there are many different tool

00:05:01: sets you can use, but the corporate VC is one that's well known, but that has

00:05:06: made quite a few mistakes along the way.

00:05:09: And we could talk about them, but I think now we're becoming

00:05:12: very mature as an ecosystem.

00:05:14: We start to have really good world class corporate VCs who are performing

00:05:18: both on the strategic front.

00:05:21: Which you could argue is pre-financial and the financial front.

00:05:25: And this correlation between strategic value and financial value

00:05:29: is better and better, understood better and better practiced.

00:05:33: And that, I think, gives me hope that what we're doing at TDK Ventures is

00:05:39: inspiring others to think from first principles, what makes sense for them.

00:05:43: I don't want anyone to try to copy and paste.

00:05:46: What we do at TDK Ventures because it's mostly designed to make sure that we

00:05:51: bring value to our limited partners, which is TDK and TDK companies.

00:05:55: But thinking from first principle should give many people who are

00:05:59: starting a corporate VC or are looking to improve them, to ask the

00:06:03: right questions, what it is that they should ask themselves to design their

00:06:08: corporate VCs to bring maximum values to the entrepreneurs they want to

00:06:12: serve, as well as their mothership.

00:06:15: Uh, Nicolas, you're not only leading TDK Ventures, you are the also the founder,

00:06:19: uh, as you mentioned of TDK Ventures.

00:06:21: Could you maybe briefly describe the mission of TDK Ventures?

00:06:24: What it stands for?

00:06:25: The mission of TDK Ventures is to catalyze iconic companies, and this one is really

00:06:31: important because catalyze means that it would not happen if we were not there.

00:06:35: So it means that we,

00:06:37: We're very ambitious about the ability to bring what we call TDK goodness

00:06:41: to our portfolio companies and, but also to TDK teams because when we

00:06:46: say catalyzing iconic companies, it's basically icon, uh, our portfolio

00:06:51: companies who could become iconic.

00:06:54: Like, uh, Groq I think is a clear one that, uh, uh, has

00:06:58: been on the news very recently.

00:07:00: Yeah.

00:07:00: Congratulations to that one.

00:07:01: That's really amazing.

00:07:02: Thank you very much.

00:07:04: But, but it could be also.

00:07:06: Internal organic, uh, teams inside TDK where we help them to become iconic.

00:07:14: And the same for inorganic, where we would identify a company that TDK

00:07:18: could acquire and to make iconic.

00:07:21: And so when we think about our mission of catalyze

00:07:23: iconic companies

00:07:25: we're thinking about it from the wider spectrum, which is both the companies we

00:07:29: invest in, the TDK teams that are building something really novel inside the company.

00:07:35: And we want this to scale very high and to become iconic, but also to

00:07:39: acquire companies that we think could accelerate our mission at TDK.

00:07:44: Um, you briefly mentioned, uh, TDK, goodness, maybe you could

00:07:46: explain the concept, uh, to us.

00:07:48: Yeah, so TDK goodness is what we call value add that we bring

00:07:53: to portfolio companies, but.

00:07:55: To our ecosystem.

00:07:56: So it could be our investing partners, it could be the TDK teams and so on.

00:08:00: But it only counts as a TDK goodness when the recipient, typically the CEO

00:08:05: or CTO or the teams as the founders, uh, of the portfolio company, validate

00:08:11: it was useful and valuable to them.

00:08:13: So it's very easy for us to, as a VC firm or CVC firm, to think

00:08:19: that everything we do is valuable

00:08:21: to the recipient, but actually when you do ask, was it valuable?

00:08:26: You get very quickly the feedback.

00:08:28: No, that was not useful.

00:08:29: This introduction to this investor was not useful.

00:08:32: This introduction to this technology was not useful and so you can very quickly

00:08:37: calibrate and I think for us to have the TDK goodness definition that it only

00:08:41: exists if it's validated by the recipient, force us to have that discipline of always

00:08:47: thinking about is it going to be valuable.

00:08:50: Okay.

00:08:50: Um, if you look to startups and deeptech startups, they often struggle to

00:08:54: jump from pilot to real scale.

00:08:57: Uh, to be really a scale up. From what you see where does

00:09:01: Corporate, um, Venture Capital make the biggest difference?

00:09:03: The biggest difference to help startups in scaling?

00:09:06: I like to think about

00:09:07: VC and CVC is all about superpowers.

00:09:10: What it is that you as an investor can bring to the entrepreneur

00:09:15: to accelerate their journey and to de-risk their journey?

00:09:19: And Corporate VCs have more superpowers because if it's designed

00:09:25: well, you're going to leverage that superpower coming from the

00:09:28: mothership to help the entrepreneurs, your portfolio companies, and so.

00:09:34: As long as you design your Corporate VC well, which means you can leverage

00:09:38: your mothership to de-risk or to accelerate the project of your portfolio

00:09:42: companies, you are in the right track.

00:09:45: And like you said, it could be helping them with de-risking the science.

00:09:49: It could be a pilot to, uh, validate the go-to market.

00:09:53: It could be a number of things that the mothership can bring with a brand.

00:09:59: As a value proposition, maybe partnering.

00:10:02: When I look at our 50 portfolio companies today, five zero, we have a number of

00:10:09: them, which are customers to TDK, a number of them are partners to TDK, like go

00:10:14: to market like Groq would be a good

00:10:16: partner, and some of them are suppliers to TDK, and as long as you

00:10:21: think about it from that equal win partnership and equal win matters

00:10:25: a lot because if you think about a startup working with a big corporation,

00:10:30: when most people say it's a win-win.

00:10:33: It happens to be a very small win for the startup and a very

00:10:36: big win for the corporation.

00:10:38: And it sounds good for the corporation, but two, three years down the

00:10:41: line, when the startups start to be successful, they're going to move on

00:10:45: because they didn't necessarily feel good about that small win, big win.

00:10:49: But if you rightsize your partnerships to be equal win partnership, you're

00:10:53: looking at really long-term partnerships.

00:10:55: Decades long, you're going to have a sustainable engagement.

00:11:00: And this is at the end of the day, I think what Corporate VCs should design for,

00:11:05: which is to make sure that when you engage with entrepreneurs as they become the

00:11:09: next iconic company, these unicorns, these market leaders, you don't want them to

00:11:16: feel bad about your cooperation because of how you started the engagement.

00:11:20: You want them to want to work with you, you to your, with your mothership.

00:11:24: You want them to have high intimacy where they feel like if everything

00:11:28: equal, they will always work with you.

00:11:30: And that I think is how you should think about the engagement at

00:11:34: the beginning is it an

00:11:35: equal win?

00:11:37: Um, thanks Nicolas for highligthing that, so it's really about building trustful

00:11:40: partnerships that last not only for a couple of weeks, but last really

00:11:43: for, for years and hopefully decades.

00:11:45: Exactly.

00:11:46: Uh, and then maybe

00:11:47: both companies, the corporate and the former startup, are big companies

00:11:51: and, um, in global, global leaders.

00:11:53: TDK Ventures is a global company and global investor.

00:11:57: Do you see some trends in the global CVC landscape that you can share with us?

00:12:01: It's coming up 2026, 2027.

00:12:04: I think we.

00:12:05: I mean, one thing which is becoming obvious, I know because we discussed

00:12:09: it before, is a convergence of electrification. The energy generation

00:12:16: and storage and transportation and use and AI, and we've started

00:12:22: investing in that convergence,

00:12:25: three, four years ago. And it's interesting because last year is

00:12:28: the first time you start to hear people talking about hyperscalers

00:12:33: AI data centers in, not in tops or flops, but in terms of gigawatts.

00:12:40: And so it's really interesting to see that trend is now maturing.

00:12:44: And what I'm extremely hopeful is human ingenuity.

00:12:50: We're going to see so many engineers, innovators, uh, entrepreneurs working

00:12:57: on the toughest problems, all the bottlenecks that are needed to deliver

00:13:01: the AI promise, but in a responsible way.

00:13:05: And for us at TDK ventures, in a way which decarbonize,

00:13:09: which is a responsible electrification.

00:13:12: We invested, for example, three years ago in nuclear fusion.

00:13:16: We, last year we invested in geothermal.

00:13:20: We invest in a number of, uh, solutions that allows for decarbonizing, but

00:13:25: with the right unit economics because at the end of the day, and we are

00:13:28: an investor, so we really care about this, is to make sure that the unit

00:13:32: economics of the project, we back

00:13:35: gets to a positive unit economic. So it could start negative, which

00:13:40: is why venture capital exists.

00:13:41: We can make bets like this, but we have to have conviction,

00:13:45: this is going to improve and the unit economics are going

00:13:48: to be good and competitive compared to any type of energy.

00:13:53: Um, if you look globally, do you see some differences in the

00:13:56: different regions and the continens about these developments?

00:14:00: I think so.

00:14:01: I think it's, um, so I just spoke about nuclear fusion.

00:14:05: It's got huge tailwinds right now in the US.

00:14:09: I think it's seen as the right thing to do from

00:14:13: being green, of course, but also for national safety and,

00:14:17: and sovereign protection.

00:14:20: I think if you, if you think about geothermal, this is very geographically

00:14:25: based, if you think about hydrogen and how it's being tailwinds in one place

00:14:31: in the world and headwinds in the other.

00:14:34: So I think yes, I, I do see a huge differences in terms of

00:14:39: energy generation, but it's also true for energy storage.

00:14:42: We invested in a company called Peak Energy, which is doing, uh, sodium ion

00:14:47: um, battery storage for hyperscalers, and this is the right way to solve

00:14:55: for where you don't need high energy density, but you may not

00:15:00: have supply of lithium and cobalt and nickel like we used to have.

00:15:03: So when you talk about geographic, uh, uh, differences, I think there is

00:15:07: also a geopolitical layer to consider.

00:15:10: Um, you mentioned some energy storage and that you have invested in, in, in one of

00:15:14: these companies we had, uh, VERBUND also have a close look on new storage technology

00:15:18: and often find it hard really to choose the right technologies to scale.

00:15:23: What, what about you?

00:15:23: So what about your thoughts?

00:15:25: 'cause there's so many different, uh, energy storage technologies at the place.

00:15:28: Yeah.

00:15:28: And, um, no specific technology would solve all these problems.

00:15:33: Yep.

00:15:33: And I think that's probably one of the biggest reason a

00:15:37: corporation need a Corporate VC.

00:15:40: A corporation can't make 20 bets into the different technologies.

00:15:44: A Corporate VC can make a number of bets in

00:15:48: very orthogonal approaches in terms of technology and what we do at TDK

00:15:53: Ventures is we dream of different type of Futures. So we can dream a future where

00:15:59: geopolitics gets worse and we go, don't get supply of materials like we used to

00:16:06: and that we used to take for granted.

00:16:08: So let's assume a future where we don't get lithium anymore.

00:16:11: We don't get cobalt.

00:16:12: We don't get nickel, then a sodium ion solution is perfect.

00:16:17: Then we will start dreaming a future where maybe the energy cost gets to zero.

00:16:22: What does that world mean?

00:16:24: What do we need to invest in today?

00:16:26: And so we think about these different type of futures and we backcast from there.

00:16:31: And we look at what are the gaps to get to that future or

00:16:35: to mitigate a negative future.

00:16:38: And then we always find entrepreneurs working on this.

00:16:41: And so we have this unfair advantage to make multiple bets, which are

00:16:46: uncorrelated, orthogonal, and as long as some of them work out,

00:16:53: we are going to learn a lot.

00:16:54: We're going to get really good financial returns.

00:16:56: We're going to bring maximum value to our mothership, even

00:16:59: if some of them don't work out.

00:17:01: And this is one, I think one of the key difference with the corporation.

00:17:06: A corporation cannot afford to make a bet, which is going to zero.

00:17:10: It's never a good thing.

00:17:12: But in venture capital, if you have a portfolio of bets and some don't work out,

00:17:16: the maximum you lose is one X. But if you look at the ones that works out, you could

00:17:21: get 10 x, 50 x, maybe 100 x, and that pays back for every zero that you get.

00:17:28: Thinking about a future of, um, energy and electricity costs

00:17:32: Zero.

00:17:32: That's also something keeping awake us in VERBUND because we are a big Generator

00:17:37: of electricity and, um, if you look so at this scenario.

00:17:43: In which fields of startups or sectors are you looking for investments?

00:17:46: 'cause that's, I think, one of the most amazing at the moment.

00:17:49: Um, what new companies really arise here in the, in the field.

00:17:53: And also scale quite quickly?

00:17:54: We have several examples here in Europe as well, but would be interesting

00:17:57: to have your thoughts on that.

00:17:59: Which kind of companies you're looking in this future scenario?

00:18:02: I think so.

00:18:04: Maybe a good mapping.

00:18:05: It is to think about where does the demand come from, and it's quite

00:18:09: a view that energy demand was not growing fast until AI and now it's

00:18:14: becoming a real problem, and it's not that we can't satisfy the demand.

00:18:19: There is also a fairness aspect to it.

00:18:21: You can't just give the energy all for AI hyperscaler and then

00:18:25: charge more for every consumer.

00:18:27: So you have to think about it very responsibly and ethically.

00:18:31: And so you need to have this mapping about what it is that we need to do to solve

00:18:36: for that problem of demand in a way that can really support this huge and what is

00:18:43: actually very expected to be exponential.

00:18:46: And the problem is

00:18:48: energy is, you're looking at grids that have not been updated around the world.

00:18:53: You're looking at a number of things.

00:18:55: I, I'll take an example, transformers, and it's funny because

00:18:59: for AI you need transformers.

00:19:01: But to power AI, you also need transformers for, uh,

00:19:05: adapting the voltage and

00:19:07: this is one space where the incumbents have not really innovated for a long time.

00:19:13: And so we decided to invest and it was at the incubation time of a company called

00:19:18: Amperesand in Singapore and they, it was a spinoff from the University of Singapore,

00:19:24: which is really, really strong into power electronics, and they were developing a

00:19:29: solid state transformer, which fit our investment thesis at the time, which is:

00:19:33: As you start to have more green energy, which are intermittent and variable,

00:19:39: you need to be able to communicate and to transfer to the grid in both ways.

00:19:45: No longer from one side to the other, but it has to be bidirectional

00:19:50: and you have to have some advantages that transformer brain.

00:19:54: So we invested very early when we could not prove that

00:19:58: this was going to be needed.

00:20:00: Now, of course this is being proven and, and everyone now is looking

00:20:03: for this and you have huge number of years queuing for to get them.

00:20:08: But the point is you, I think there is value to map where you think

00:20:12: the bottlenecks will come from.

00:20:14: And in this case, it's not difficult to dream a future where the demand

00:20:17: is going to be 10 x what it is today.

00:20:19: And then you think about all the gaps, all the bottlenecks, all the friction

00:20:23: points to get to that 10 x of demand.

00:20:26: You're going to find amazing entrepreneurs, amazing technology,

00:20:30: amazing corporations working on this.

00:20:32: And that should be your bets.

00:20:34: You mentioned, Nicolas, that you invested in the spinoff of this

00:20:36: Singapore company, a university, yeah.

00:20:39: Uh, university.

00:20:40: Um, how important are university corporations for you?

00:20:44: We, at VERBUND X, we just launched a new initiative in Europe called Energy Launchpad,

00:20:48: where we work closely with, uh, ETH Zurich and TU Munich and TU Vienna.

00:20:53: So it would be interesting to have your perspective, uh, on, um, university

00:20:57: corporations. So we don't have

00:20:59: Uh, corporations,

00:21:01: corporations with universities directly.

00:21:03: Of course we talk to them, but it's not like very, uh, advanced.

00:21:09: But what we do is when we do a deep exploration into a space,

00:21:13: we try to identify which startup could be the king of the hill.

00:21:17: Which basically means five to seven or 10 years from now could be the market leader.

00:21:22: And when we do this deep declaration, we do a very big exploration and research

00:21:27: on the IP, and that's typically helps us to identify which university is

00:21:31: working on this gap to get to this future,

00:21:34: we are

00:21:35: dreaming about.

00:21:36: Mm-hmm.

00:21:36: And so if I think about good examples, so the Singapore for the Transformers

00:21:42: was one, uh, one was in Sydney, where the technology to do, um

00:21:48: Lithium extraction, direct lithium extraction was world class and

00:21:53: that was, uh, licensed to a company called Novalith, which we invested in.

00:21:58: So that, and, and you can imagine Australia for the mining industry

00:22:02: is very big, very advanced.

00:22:04: So that's probably why it made sense for us to find this IP,

00:22:09: World Class IP in, in Sydney.

00:22:12: Um, if I think about metalens, which is.

00:22:16: I mean if you think about your glasses you're wearing now, they have not

00:22:19: changed in 600 years of technology.

00:22:22: And here metalens is basically using metal technology, which is basically flat

00:22:27: semiconductor processes to do the same, if not better than what optics can do today.

00:22:34: And that one was coming from Harvard University and they are like world

00:22:39: class in terms of IP and innovation.

00:22:42: And META licensed the technology.

00:22:44: So I think it's not that we are doing a partnership for each university, but

00:22:50: when we identify a world class IP

00:22:54: for a topic we are looking at, this is when we would probably engage with the

00:22:58: university and engage with a startup that are being incubated close by.

00:23:02: Um, you mentioned before also on the topic of artificial intelligence and the

00:23:06: dynamics, and now in the energy sector, um, when you look some, um, concerning

00:23:11: AI startups, mostly also startups using AI, but are there different

00:23:16: regions you are looking for? It's more

00:23:18: Um, focusing on the US but also in Europe? Worldwide.

00:23:22: Worldwide.

00:23:22: I think we have to think worldwide.

00:23:25: I think you will find

00:23:27: amazing innovations coming from different places.

00:23:30: Clearly the US has huge advantage and I think the internet and then the mobile

00:23:37: technology I think is giving a chance for the US, but it's true for China as well.

00:23:42: I think there is an opportunity for Europe to do very, very well just because

00:23:46: of the quality of the universities.

00:23:49: The quality of the engineering, if I think about AI and the quality of the software,

00:23:55: but the underlying mathematics you need to understand to innovate for the models,

00:24:01: both on the training and the inference.

00:24:03: I think there is a space for European ingenuity and for

00:24:09: European countries specificities.

00:24:12: Do you also have quantum computing, um, on your radar?

00:24:15: Yes, but quantum computing is one which we explore

00:24:19: every two to three years, probably every two years.

00:24:22: And we haven't found a strong why now.

00:24:25: And I think that has been our challenge.

00:24:27: So even though we're very excited by it, and TDK, our limited partner

00:24:31: is very excited about it, we haven't found something where we felt a strong

00:24:37: why now was qualifying for us to invest.

00:24:42: Uh, but we're still looking and, uh, our investment director and course X Center is

00:24:47: planning to rebrand this deep exploration on quantum computing this year.

00:24:51: So, and I think it's probably going to be on the sensing side,

00:24:55: which seems more immediate than other type of quantum computing.

00:24:59: Okay.

00:25:00: I, I think here we can offer in Austria quite a lot with a strong quantum computing

00:25:04: society from, uh, universities, but also a lot of interesting startups in this field.

00:25:08: I, I actually, this, I'm glad you talk about this.

00:25:12: I like to think about countries should also build their superpower.

00:25:16: And if I think about innovations, corporate venturing

00:25:19: VCs, I think Austria, you,

00:25:24: the government could be so smart.

00:25:26: Betting strong on quantum computing, ensuring that you're

00:25:30: building market leaders in quantum computing from Austria.

00:25:34: If your listeners are from the Austrian Government,

00:25:37: I really hope they think about like a VC in a way, which is what it is that's

00:25:43: going to be your superpower, which means you are going to be world class.

00:25:46: No one is going to be as good as you are, and part of it is

00:25:51: talent, but also talent density.

00:25:54: And I think you have that in Austria for Quantum.

00:25:56: Yeah, thanks for, thanks for that recommendation also to the Austrian

00:25:59: government and, um, in these days they finalize also

00:26:03: the new industrial strategy for Austria and they exactly do that.

00:26:06: Focusing on specific industries.

00:26:08: Not too many, but, and, and someone and then really

00:26:11: pushing forward that. I think, I mean at the end, strategy for me is about deciding

00:26:16: what not to do and you just pick a few, but the few you pick, you do it so well.

00:26:22: And so I think that's the right approach.

00:26:24: Nicolas, maybe we should come now to, to the Global Corporate

00:26:28: Venturing Leadership Society.

00:26:30: You became chair of the Leadership Societies on early this year, so what

00:26:34: does this role mean to you personally?

00:26:36: It's really in a outstanding position for the global CVC uh, community.

00:26:40: It is quite, um, a huge honor 'cause you are chosen to represent corporate

00:26:46: venturing on a global basis for hundreds, if not thousands of Corporate VCs.

00:26:52: But for me, it's actually paying back in a way as well as paying forward.

00:26:57: Um, I remember when I presented the project to start

00:27:00: TDK ventures.

00:27:02: I got the okay from the CEO in December, 2018.

00:27:05: So summer 2018 is when we met during Stanford.

00:27:09: I went and I iterated on the proposal, got the okay from the CEO in December, 2018.

00:27:15: And so at that point I thought, okay, now I can spend some money

00:27:18: to go to the GCV Monterey event, which at that point was in January.

00:27:23: And so in January, 2019, I went to the GCV Monterey event, GCVI, and that

00:27:29: was my first chance to meet many, many Corporate VCs and to ask questions,

00:27:33: and I keep asking questions, and everyone was so generous with me.

00:27:38: Everyone was helping me to understand what's

00:27:41: best practices, what's not best practices.

00:27:44: What was the mistakes made in the past?

00:27:46: How to think about working with VCs, working with other Corporate VCs,

00:27:50: working with the mothership, how to visualize strategic value and so on.

00:27:55: That was, I think, an accelerant, if not a catalyst to where we are today, because

00:28:01: it helped me to really think about

00:28:04: the design of TDK ventures from first principle with even more

00:28:08: data point than if I had not gone.

00:28:10: And so I feel a huge sense of gratitude towards GCV because of

00:28:15: what they provide as a community.

00:28:17: And I think anyone who's listening, who's thinking about doing a corporate

00:28:21: VC or are in Corporate VC, or they're the CEO of a company who are thinking about

00:28:25: doing a Corporate vc, I would highly recommend them to go to GCVI in Monterey

00:28:30: or maybe the symposium in London because

00:28:34: getting to talk to other Corporate VCs and some of the best Corporate VCs and

00:28:39: getting to learn from them is probably the cheapest way to ensure that you don't

00:28:44: make very expensive mistakes and you end up designing your Corporate VC exactly

00:28:50: the way it's going to maximize value.

00:28:53: As you are now the chair of the Leadership Society, um, what are you going to put

00:28:56: on the agenda, um, for the next years?

00:28:59: So for me, I think the GCV has done really well as building community

00:29:03: and sharing best practices.

00:29:05: One thing that I think is

00:29:08: important is to raise a bar for individuals and maybe there

00:29:14: would be a certification process.

00:29:15: I would like to propose where people go through trainings, but

00:29:19: it's not because you went to the training that you really understood.

00:29:22: And so I would want to have some kind of

00:29:24: testing to make sure that when people go to trainings, they do get a certification.

00:29:29: That means they really internalize the best practices of corporate venturing.

00:29:33: Another idea which I would like to promote, and of course this is a community

00:29:38: effort, it's not just a few individuals, is a self scoring, which would allow

00:29:43: Corporate VCs to self score themselves according to best practices, which we know

00:29:48: from different surveys and from talking to people who have done really, really well.

00:29:53: And that self scoring is not for you to just brag about outside, but to

00:29:59: be able to have that communication with your mothership to say, Hey,

00:30:03: according to GCV, if we were to do this change, maybe not from the balance

00:30:08: sheet, but from base or maybe doing

00:30:11: championship differently for investment approval or the investment committee

00:30:15: not being 12 people, but maybe three people, then the score would be higher.

00:30:21: And if we do that kind of self scoring system, we would allow, I think Corporate

00:30:26: VC would really want to do well, including for their mothership to negotiate with

00:30:31: their mothership for better designs.

00:30:33: Um, thanks.

00:30:35: Thanks, uh, Nicolas for that outlook.

00:30:36: I think it's quite important to have really good data points.

00:30:39: So in order to have a, um, a discussion on the same level with the, the board

00:30:44: of the, of the mothership, uh, and that could be really bring value to all of

00:30:48: the CVCs, uh, around the, uh, the globe.

00:30:50: And that's why the Keystone survey, which is coming in two weeks, uh,

00:30:55: which is surveying so many Corporate VCs, including on best practices.

00:30:59: It's going to be such an important data point and this is what I'm

00:31:03: hoping to leverage for any type of self scoring mechanism.

00:31:08: Okay, great.

00:31:09: Um, if you maybe combine the work you're doing with GCV to the challenges

00:31:15: we have in the energy sector, um, how important is corporate venturing

00:31:20: for solving the issues and challenges we have in the ancient sector?

00:31:24: Critical.

00:31:25: Uh, if you think about what I spoke earlier, I think human ingenuity

00:31:30: is going to be amazing to try to solve for this powering of AI.

00:31:35: And it's not just powering for AI, for AI sake, but if you improve the way

00:31:40: you power things, you are going to electrify so much, which is going

00:31:45: to create maximum societal impact.

00:31:48: Positive societal impact.

00:31:50: And I think Corporate VCs have an ability with their superpowers coming from their

00:31:54: mothership to accelerate and de-risk the project of entrepreneurs working in the

00:32:00: energy space in a way that VCs cannot do, in a way that universities cannot do,

00:32:06: and governments probably can never do.

00:32:09: And so I think corporate VCs could be that lubrication of

00:32:13: innovation that's needed for

00:32:16: Energy and AI and everything that you can imagine that needs to be solved

00:32:23: in a way that no other actors can do.

00:32:26: In order to wrap up, Nicolas, if our listeners fast forward to 2026,

00:32:30: remember just one thing from today's discussion, uh, what should that be?

00:32:34: I think it's, I'm going to be very biased, but it's all about

00:32:37: the Entrepreneurs. All progress

00:32:40: in society, start with the entrepreneurs who are dreaming a future that does not

00:32:45: exist and that are going to build it.

00:32:49: And they're going to face many, many challenges.

00:32:52: And this is where big corporations, Corporate VCs,

00:32:56: investors, and so many actors

00:32:59: can really help to accelerate and de-risk their project.

00:33:03: So if there was one takeaway is how do we maximize the chance, and maybe in

00:33:08: Austria the same, how do we maximize the chance for the entrepreneurs or local

00:33:12: entrepreneurs to be very, very successful?

00:33:15: Thanks, Nicolas.

00:33:16: I think that's a quite important, uh, message to all of us.

00:33:20: And, um, thanks for this forward looking conversation.

00:33:23: It was a real pleasure to have you with us here.

00:33:26: It likes, likes continuing our discussions from Stanford.

00:33:29: Um, and thanks to all our listeners to empowering tomorrow.

00:33:33: The future of the energy depends on the decisions we make today.

00:33:36: So let's keep the conversation going and let's empower tomorrow together.

00:33:39: Thank you.

00:33:40: Yeah, thanks Nicolas.

00:33:41: Thank you, Franz.