Scott Gunther: The CVC world of IAG Firemark Ventures

On this episode of Scouting for Growth, Sabine VdL talks to Scott Gunther, General Partner at IAG Firemark Ventures, the corporate venture capital fund from IAG located in Australia. Scott has been at IAG for over 10 years and has been running the Venture fund for over 6 years. With strong expertise in marketing customer experience among others, Scott wanted to bring something new to the group, by opening his doors to the external world to ensure its resilience and relevance for the very long term. During this podcast, the pair discuss Scott’s path to CVC Land, and what IAG Firemark Ventures do to remain on top of its game. They also cover the topic of talent, talent, and talent, and what remote working means for Scott and his team. Finally, they discuss best practices for startups, scaleups, corporate innovators, and investors wanting to build their corporate venturing arm.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Everything we hear, see and experience in the startup world today is not new, it happened way back during the dot com boom. That’s where I started and I couldn’t ask for a more impressive grounding, working for one of Australia’s largest companies and trying to set something up – 90-day sprints to try to launch businesses, products, and services and thinking about the World Wide Web before it became the World Wide Web, eCommerce and the like. As a young man, at the time, coming out of university, I probably had no idea what the future was going to hold for me.
• A fundamental part of why we do what we do is to bring the outside world inside our own enterprise and try to transform how we deliver insurance. That means that every day is different because, as you’re starting to look at global, macro trends or at different markets to see what’s working, or looking at different parts of the customer journey. We’re working today with business-to-consumer businesses, Agritech, or AI businesses, there are no two days that are the same. The more that you can experience, whether it’s industry or role, function or geography, it really sets you apart from the rest to have this flexibility. Successful CVCs across the world are made up of teams that have got really diverse skill sets.
• CVCs fail or succeed depending on their acknowledgment that they’re part of something bigger and that the corporate HQ has its primary direction and purpose. At IAG our purpose is to make your world a safer place, we’re there to insure customers, their assets, businesses, livelihoods, and a whole heap of other different risks. But also, if an incident or a claim happened, to be there to help them to recover. Working for an organization that is very purpose driven gives you something to work backward from and something to aim for, like the North Star. Any CVC has to make sure that they’re not just a little adjunct of a corporation, they’re a really integral part of the business and as a consequence, you really have to know your business inside and out.
• When we put our investment thesis together we had to get razor-sharp on the things that you can and can’t do. You might want to invest in every market, look at all sorts of different stages of startups, and invest different amounts.  When you first get going you need to give yourself guardrails, like not investing in series c stage scaleups for instance. For instance, our CVC does not lead investment rounds. We do not invest in certain markets. As we evolve, we will adjust, refine and expand our investment thesis which will change for the better over time.

BEST MOMENTS

‘I’ve always been a believer in breadth and depth of experiences and my journey took me to different parts of the business world but also into very relevant adjacent verticals too.’
‘Insurance is something you fall into and if you fall into it, you stay there.’
‘Those CVCs who are really intrinsically in tune with understanding changing business models, but also the relationships across businesses and our industry, are the ones that are probably more successful.’
‘Innovation is something that anyone in an organization should aspire to do. If you’re not moving forward you’re standing still and if you’re standing still, realistically, you’re going backward.’

ABOUT THE GUEST
Scott Gunther is a corporate venture capitalist (CVC) & startup enthusiast. Scott every day partners with business leaders to help them identify and understand strategic opportunities to achieve digital transformation and customer growth. With years of experience designing future state digital-first businesses and delivering transformation programs across multiple industries, Scott possesses the unique skills and experience of both strategy and execution - a differentiator at the board table for both blue chip and emerging businesses.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottdgunther/
IAG Firemark Ventures website: https://firemarkcollective.com/ventures

ABOUT THE HOST

There are over 140,000 FinTech ventures out there, including FinTechs, InsurTechs, HealthTechs, and WealthTechs. And the number keeps on changing every month. One statistic remains the same: 25% of these ventures have received investment and support from the financing world. 75% of these businesses still seek financing support from institutional and corporate investors alongside value-creating commercial collaboration opportunities with Global Fortune 500. 

Through this podcast series, I would like to demystify the world of corporate venturing, including how corporations collaborate with growth ventures, how venture capitalists and corporate venture capitalists make investment and collaboration choices in ventures and give tech founders and entrepreneurs, the strategies, tactics, tools, and techniques to build, grow and scale their business by understanding how those with financing power think. So, listen in, share and comment as you see fit.

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