How to Evaluate Startups for Corporate Partnerships

In the past three years, Collective Campus has been home to more than 50 startups that have gone on to raise over US$13M.

We’ve run multiple accelerator programs with companies from the legal services, technology, real estate and entertainment sectors and we’ve observed a massive upswing in the number of large organisations exploring different ways (here’s eight) to partner with startups.

From corporate accelerator programs to reverse pitching and setting up venture funds, in each of these cases executives need a method to decide which startups to work with.

And it’s a decision not to be left to senior executives and their own devices as oftentimes that’s likely to result in evaluating the startups through the lens of a big corporate (how can we use this today? How big is the market today? How has this worked before? Is this a sure thing?).

For more on the difference between corporates and startups and why they should be approached differently check out Corporates are from Venus, Startups are from Mars.

To best make decisions, you need a framework to help you along the journey.

Find below a snapshot of the criteria we turn to at Collective Campus to help us evaluate startups for corporate partnerships.

For more on Corporate Startup Partnerships, check out our 101 on the topic here!