Large companies may not like the rise of agile, innovative and technologically advanced startups all around the world, they may be worried about it, they may even be excited, but they certainly may not ignore it. Startups are game-changers across multiple markets and industries, rapidly disrupting them in ways traditional large companies aren’t yet able to. That doesn’t mean however that two of them aren’t able to cooperate and combine their resources for even larger impact and in order to achieve business goals.
The mission of D-RAFT is to help corporations and startups grow together through profitable cooperation. Executive startup search agency based in Warsaw connects hundreds of startups from different accelerators and technology parks with large multinational companies, allowing them to develop product and distribution partnerships mutually benefiting both and generating actual revenue. Recently, D-RAFT expanded its offices to Munich and Tel-Aviv, with plans for London, Barcelona and Paris in the near future. Those networks created will also tighten connections between startups from CEE, Western Europe and multinationals.
Three main forms of cooperation D-RAFT is nurturing are corporations buying startups’ products/services, establishing partnerships or multinationals investing in startups. The great example of a partnership which resulted in a strategic investment are Telia and Spotify. Creating similar success stories in CEE region would boost the ecosystem, allowing startups effectively monetize their products or find investment, while large corporations would constructively disrupt their business models and improve their offers.
Another common scenario is an “acquihire”. That is when a company is acquiring a startup primarily because of its talent. The cost per employee is usually extremely high for such deals, which is justified by the value of the product the startup is developing.
As new innovative companies penetrate markets and disrupt business models, there’s a great need for large established players to adjust and learn to establish a synergy with them. For CEE region startups it’s a great chance to develop faster and effectively bring their products to world mass-markets.
