1848 Ventures

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As people navigate the world of venture studios, I thought it'd be interesting to interview those with experience. Recently I caught up with Brian Bemiller, Innovation Engine Leader at 1848 Ventures, backed by Westfield. 1848 Ventures is a corporate venture studio building new B2B SaaS businesses targeting SMBs. They're specifically not building insurance companies, despite their parent, Westfield, being an insurance company. It's an interesting and proactive strategy. Brian was 1848 Ventures first employee, who previously worked at Westfield. He's seen a lot as the studio has built and launched several ventures, iterated on its validation process, hired a bunch of people (they're hiring today!) and more. Here are some highlights from that interview: Q: Why did Westfield decide to launch 1848 Ventures? There are two long term outcomes we target: (1) direct financial value from the income generated from ventures that we launch; and, (2) the indirect financial value that we generate for our parent company, Westfield, via access to new customers and data. Two examples of ventures we’ve launched, which we’re now scaling are TakeUp and Vandra. Q: Can you describe how your process works for creating new ventures? There are two distinct parts of our organization. The first is the early stage venture creation “engine” that starts with market exploration in one of our core industries of focus (retail, restaurants, hotels, real estate and construction) and progresses through customer discovery and business model ideation and de-risking through hypothesis driven, in-market testing. Throughout these phases, many alternative problem spaces and business model ideas are explored and tested. Many of these are ultimately shut down or significantly pivoted. For those that progress through the initial hypothesis driven, in-market testing, the venture is transitioned to an experienced B2B SaaS leader to carry the momentum forward into early customer acquisition, product launch/go to market, and the original team heads back to the beginning to restart in a new space. For those ventures that experience early indicators of future success (initial customer acquisition, customer feedback, market understanding, etc.), a Seed investment is made to drive additional customer growth and progression on the journey towards product market fit and scale. Once that investment is made, funds are leveraged to build a team around that specific venture and execute a Seed investment plan, iterating along the way informed by learnings from customers and the market. Q: Why do people join 1848 Ventures? For many, a corporate venture studio represents an opportunity to do the kind of work they're passionate about without the challenges and time commitment of raising capital. So many individuals on the team have come from other venture studios or the VC-backed startup world & enjoy operating and continuing to grow their skills via new and diverse experiences.

Fantastic meeting in Ohio last week with the TakeUp team! 💼🚀 Collaborating, brainstorming, and gearing up to unveil exciting new features that will propel our customers' revenue to new heights! Stay tuned for what's next! #TeamTakeUp #InnovateTogether #CustomerSuccess