Systems of Innovation – Intel Ignite Managing Director Markus Bohl

“If you take equity, it's much more transactional. So companies would then say, 'Okay, if I give you revenue, I want to make sure we get a POC within Intel, or I can sell to Intel, or you take me into a certain program,' and we don't want that, right? We want that if it's right for everybody, then it's fine. Not taking equity gives a whole different type of relationship between the startups and us, where the trust is much bigger so we can tackle, and we do that, we help them clean up the cap table. We help them find a new co-founder if necessary; or even restructure the whole team. Right. And this is not so easy if you have equity, if you have a certain bias there.”

– Markus Bohl, Managing Director of Intel® Ignite Europe

How can you create a system of innovation, that becomes a membrane to attract the best transformational technologies to collaborate with your organization? 

This week’s VentureFuel Visionary is Markus Bohl, Managing Director of Intel® Ignite Europe — Intel Corporation’s global startup accelerator program for early-stage deep tech startups. Ignite has just launched their sixth cohort in Europe. Markus has a phenomenal track record as an entrepreneur and corporate innovator, and shares his insights on how to build a breakthrough corporate accelerator that 'fuels a global ecosystem of deep tech innovation.' 

In this episode, we talk about: 

• The value of corporate-startup collaboration
• Equity vs. non-dilutive partnerships, and
• How to avoid putting on an “innovation fig leaf.”