INORGANIC GROWTH & EXPANSION SCOUTING

FINDING GROWTH BEYOND THE CORE

As part of our Discovery Practice, we offer scouting services relating to inorganic growth and expansion opportunities.

These focus on two key complementary areas of inorganic growth, namely Corporate Venturing and Mergers & Acquisitions.

The two areas of opportunity scouting therefore are:

VENTURE SCOUTING

Searching for new business ventures that are seeking to capitalize through partial or full equity investment and which also meet select strategic alignment and financial return criteria.

ACQUISITION SCOUTING

Searching for mature businesses that are open to acquisition and which meet select financial and alignment criteria.

These are each explained in further detail below.

VENTURE SCOUTING

The pace of new innovation continues to accelerate globally.   One very important manifestation of this has been in the rapid emergence of new business ventures all around the world – aka "fast-growth startups".   This new venture space continues to grow faster than ever before in history, fueled in part by hundreds of new online platforms that have given entrepreneurs access to business capitalization mechanisms never before possible.   These include venues such as crowdfunding (e.g. Kickstarter), online private equity investing (e.g. CircleUp), business plan competitions (e.g. BPC), and so on.   As a result, not only is the number of high-growth startups growing faster than ever before, more importantly, innovative new products and services are coming into the marketplace at an unprecedented pace.   This means increasing diversification and choice in the overall offering space and new sources of competitive pressure on established brands.

Sometimes, as the saying goes, "the best way to beat them is to join them".   And so it is that often times the best way to ensure your business remains in step with innovation trends that understand emerging market needs better than you do, is to invest in new business ventures pioneering those trends.   While the associated risk levels can be high, the potential returns can be even higher.   More importantly however is the fact that sometimes the risk of not investing in these pioneers is greater than the risk of doing so, should not investing in them ultimately lead to your business being disrupted.   The investment is often your only insurance for being a party to the disruption rather than a victim of it.

We are actively engaged in many circles of new venture activity, and can help clients identify appropriate new investment opportunities.   We have the know–how and the connections to scout for new business ventures that have the potential of meeting your key strategic alignment and financial return criteria.   We can usually identify relevant investment opportunities in such new ventures in a reasonable period of time.

THE ENGAGEMENT


The Venture Scouting Engagement typically follows these steps:

  1. We begin by listening to you in order to understand your investment objectives.
  2. We then profile the investment targets you are seeking, as well as your own business.   This allows us to understand what will constitute a good match between the two.
  3. We next engage in the scouting research to identify, evaluate, and ultimately short list a set of prospective new business ventures for your consideration.
    Venture scouting often involves some amount of field work, taking us to various events and destinations around the world, including conferences, industry trade shows, and specific company sites.
  4. When finished, we prepare for you a formal Venture Scouting Report detailing each of the prospective new ventures we have identified, and outlining our recommendations for potential best fits in light of anticipated future market trends.
  5. We then travel to your office and present these investment opportunities to your leadership team.   We can also lead workshops with any of your staff to help disseminate an understanding of the investment opportunities wherever needed.
  6. As desired, we can provide additional assistance in helping your organization take the next steps toward these investments, such as in conducting due diligence on any of the ventures, structuring term sheets with them, and so forth.

Engage us for Venture Scouting.

MANAGEMENT ENGAGEMENT

ACQUISITION SCOUTING

With market windows growing increasingly smaller, and innovation cycles increasingly faster, very often the fastest route to market is to acquire a mature business that already has the needed capabilities, technologies, and channel maturity, and to leverage these to rapidly configure a new offering for these windows.   This can cut time to market in half or less, depending on the category involved.   And sometimes this can mean the difference between hitting or missing these critical windows.

We are routinely plugged into numerous industries and sectors around the world, and can help clients identify appropriate acquisition targets.   We have the ability and know–how to scout for acquisition targets with the leverageable resources to expand or augment your existing business.   These would be businesses that are open to acquisition and which meet certain financial and alignment criteria relating to your business and its growth strategies.   Very often these are privately held or closely held businesses, but can include spin–offs from larger corporations, as well as businesses that have scaled through successive rounds of Venture Capital funding.   We are plugged in to several circles of business deal flow and can usually identify relevant acquisition targets in a reasonable period of time.

THE ENGAGEMENT


The Acquisition Scouting Engagement typically follows these steps:

  1. We begin by listening to you in order to understand your acquisition objectives.
  2. We then profile the acquisition target you are seeking, as well as your own business.   This allows us to understand what will constitute a good match between the two.
  3. We next engage in the acquisition research to identify, evaluate, and ultimately short list a set of prospective businesses for your consideration.
    Acquisition scouting often involves some amount of field work, taking us to various events and destinations around the world, including conferences, industry trade shows, and specific company sites.
  4. When finished, we prepare for you a formal Acquisition Scouting Report detailing each of the prospective acquisition targets we have identified, and outlining our recommendations for potential best fits in light of your acquisition objectives.
  5. We then travel to your office and present these acquisition opportunities to your leadership team.   We can also lead workshops with any of your staff to help disseminate an understanding of the acquisition opportunities wherever needed.
  6. As desired, we can provide additional assistance in helping your organization take the next steps toward these acquisitions.

Engage us for Acquisition Scouting.

MANAGEMENT ENGAGEMENT
 

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