As Managing Partner of V_labs, a leading European venture builder, I’ve witnessed firsthand how corporations can successfully leverage intrapreneurship programs to identify and develop new business opportunities. At the same time, I’ve also seen how quickly a corporate venture pipeline can run dry, putting entire venture programs at risk. In the course of our activity as the preferred venturing partner for numerous corporates, and through our partnership with rready—a Swiss start-up that systematically supports intrapreneurs within corporates to develop their business ideas—I have observed intrapreneurship programs in over 20 corporates worldwide across industries such as manufacturing, energy, banking, insurance, chemicals, and retail over the last few years.

I’ve concluded that while intrapreneurship can be a powerful tool to fill your venture building pipeline, it is crucial to understand its limitations and complement it with additional strategies. Here, I’ll outline key insights and best practices for effectively integrating intrapreneurship into your venture building framework.

The Role of Intrapreneurship in Venture Building

Intrapreneurship taps into one of a corporate’s most underutilized assets: the creativity, expertise, and insights of its employees. These are people who already understand the industry, the customers, and the operational challenges of the corporate. By empowering them to think like entrepreneurs, corporates can uncover innovative ideas that might otherwise go unnoticed.

Intrapreneurship programs provide a structured way to test and incubate ideas with the potential to evolve into full-fledged ventures. By capitalizing on employees’ domain expertise and existing resources, companies can create a robust pipeline of venture cases for further development.

However, intrapreneurship should not be your sole source of venture opportunities. A healthy venture building funnel requires a diverse set of inputs, including outside-in exploration activities like strategic foresight, market trend analysis, partnerships, and external innovation challenges. The prerequisite for all these activities is well-defined strategic search fields within which new business-building activities should occur. This diversity ensures a well-rounded and balanced pipeline, increasing the likelihood of identifying breakthrough opportunities. Put differently, intrapreneurship works best when it’s aligned with your broader strategic objectives and supported by complementary strategies. It’s not just about generating ideas—it’s about turning those ideas into scalable, impactful ventures.

Dedicated Venture-Oriented Focus Areas for Intrapreneurship

When intrapreneurship programs are designed with venture building as their end goal, it becomes critical to establish clear focus areas that extend beyond core business operations. These focus areas should align with well-defined search fields that are suitable for venture building, such as adjacent markets, emerging technologies, or disruptive business models. This ensures that intrapreneurship efforts are directed toward opportunities with the potential for significant growth and scalability, rather than incremental improvements to the existing business.

For example, consider an energy corporation launching an intrapreneurship program aimed at driving venture creation. Rather than focusing on optimizing traditional energy generation or distribution processes, the program could target emerging search fields such as decentralized energy systems, green hydrogen solutions, or energy-as-a-service platforms. By framing the program around these beyond-core areas, the corporation opens itself up to ventures that could define the future of energy markets. This strategic focus not only maximizes the program’s impact on the venture building pipeline but also ensures alignment with broader innovation and growth objectives, creating ventures with transformative potential rather than merely operational enhancements.

Incorporating outside-in perspectives has already reshaped the trajectory of many leading energy companies. For example, Shell’s investment in electric vehicle charging networks and BP’s venture into renewable energy solutions were driven by external insights into market trends and consumer shifts. These initiatives went beyond incremental improvements to redefine the companies’ roles in the evolving energy landscape.

Defining Qualification Gates for MVP and Beyond

Not all ideas emerging from intrapreneurship programs are ready to become standalone ventures. Some are better suited for incremental innovation, particularly when they involve enhancing a product or service that aligns closely with the corporation's core focus. Clear qualification gates are essential and help evaluate which ideas should progress to the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) phase and beyond. These gates should focus on:

• Market Validation: Is there a proven demand for the solution?
• Scalability Potential: Can the idea be scaled profitably?
• Investment Need: What resources are needed for building the venture?
• Upside Potential: Is there substantial market upside for future scaling?
• Strategic Fit: Does the solution align with the corporation’s strategic search areas?

One critical challenge lies in staffing the future ventures emerging out of intrapreneurship programs. While the intrapreneurs who conceived the idea often bring invaluable domain expertise, they may lack the entrepreneurial skill set required for scaling the venture. This phase typically requires external talent with experience in growing businesses and navigating the complexities of venture scaling. Corporations must strike a balance between leveraging internal expertise and recruiting the right external talent quickly to maximize the venture’s potential.

Spin-In vs. Spin-Off: Navigating Corporate Dynamics

Intrapreneurship programs are often initiated with the strategic goal of diversifying the business model of the corporate and strengthening its value chain with additional products, services, or business models. However, integrating new business opportunities emerging out of intrapreneurship into existing corporate business units (a “spin-in” approach) is often fraught with challenges. From our experience, we’ve identified two recurring issues:

1. Operational Integration Struggles: Many corporates face difficulties in operationally taking over new business opportunities. Clear conditions and accountability for scaling up within the business unit are often missing, leading to friction and stagnation. The not-invented-here syndrome is often a further challenge.
2. Goal-Risk Mismatch: New ventures frequently lack immediate commercial potential for the business unit, making it challenging to justify the associated risks. This disconnect between short-term corporate goals and the long-term vision of the new business often results in missed opportunities.

Given these challenges, many corporations initially pursue a spin-in approach but eventually pivot to a spin-off strategy. This transition is particularly common when new ideas are radical and require autonomy to thrive—a hallmark of venture building.

A concrete example we accompanied in the past is Myflexbox, a corporate spin-off of the Austrian energy provider Salzburg AG, which emerged from an internal intrapreneurship project. Eventually, the nature of Myflexbox’s business model (as a smart locker provider) was so distinct from its parent company’s core operations that further scaling necessitated a spin-off. The initial hypothesis of using corporate premises and assets for smart lockers as a growth driver did not materialize, so a spin-off was considered to find a different growth path. The spin-off strategy (which we developed together with the founding team of Myflexbox) was essential for the successful transition from an intrapreneurial project to a fully operational and independent venture, which ultimately secured EUR 75 million in external funding.

Establishing a Spin-Off Approach

To successfully transition from a spin-in to a spin-off model, corporations need:

1. Clear Gates for Spin-In vs. Spin-Off Decisions: Criteria should be developed to evaluate whether a venture is better suited for integration within the corporate structure or as an independent entity.
2. Dedicated Organizational Vehicles for Scaling Spin-Offs: An independent venture building unit or entity with the necessary processes, resources, and governance can be established to effectively scale spin-off ventures.

By embracing a spin-off approach where necessary, companies can provide the new venture with the freedom and agility required to innovate and grow. Simultaneously, the parent corporation can maintain a strategic stake, ensuring alignment with its broader objectives.

A great example of establishing a spin-off approach emerging originally from an intrapreneurship program is Chemovator of BASF, a leading corporation in the chemical industry. In an interview conducted with Chemovator’s Managing Director Markus Bold last November, he highlighted the importance of having an independent process for scaling up venture cases and establishing a consistent portfolio approach—one that resembles a venture capital mindset more than traditional innovation management—as a key success factor. We will be publishing the full interview with Markus in a separate publication later this year.

Building a Resilient Venture Pipeline

In conclusion, intrapreneurship is a valuable tool for filling your venture building pipeline, but it works best when combined with complementary exploration activities. Clear qualification gates, well-defined spin-in versus spin-off strategies, and the establishment of dedicated organizational vehicles are critical for success.

At V_labs, we’ve helped numerous corporates navigate this complex journey, transforming innovative ideas into scalable ventures. By leveraging these insights, you can build a resilient and dynamic venture pipeline that drives long-term growth and innovation.

Ready to transform your venture pipeline? Contact us today to get started!