Exiting Corporate Ventures: The Bundl Venture Club Guide
Corporations plan how a venture starts and almost never how it ends. There are three ways out, each with its own moment and its own process. This guide sets out all three, with a worked case behind two of them.
Get the free report
46 pages · PDF and onlineWhat you walk away with
- Three exit pathways, and how to tell which one you are actually in
- A wind-down run like a launch, rather than a quiet failure
- What it takes to make a venture buyer-ready, and to control the valuation
Drawn from venture work with
Why this report exists
Every venture gets an ending. Almost none get a plan for one.
Stopping is not failure and selling is not a retreat. A venture can be wound down, harvested for the assets that still hold value, or divested when it has outgrown the parent. Each is a different process, and the cost of confusing them is paid in value that quietly disappears.
Treat exits like a portfolio strategy, not an admission.
What changes
Three exit pathways, run properly.
Each pathway has its own readiness test, its own sequence, and its own way of losing value if it is improvised.
Wind-downs
Stop well, when stopping is the right call
- 1Run a readiness gateDecide it on evidence, not on fatigue
- 2Treat it like a launchPlanned, resourced and sequenced
- 3Minimise burn and legal riskThe obligations that outlive the venture
- 4Communicate with careTeam, customers and partners, in that order
Harvests
Keep the value when the venture itself stops
- 5Identify assets earlyWhat is worth keeping, found before the end
- 6Run an organisational fit testWhere in the parent it could actually live
- 7Build buyer-specific strategiesDifferent assets, different homes
- 8Execute a structured transferTiming, handover, and measuring what was kept
Divestments
Sell well when the venture outgrows you
- 9Know when to divestThe signals that the parent is now the ceiling
- 10Identify the buyer profileWho this is worth more to than it is to you
- 11Make the venture buyer-readyWhat has to be true before a process starts
- 12Build the exit caseTaking control of the valuation
- 13Run a structured processSelection criteria and deal structure, decided in advance
Inside the report
Built for the ending nobody planned.
3Exit pathways, each with its own process
2Worked cases: Amazon Care and Cortana
13Actions across the three pathways
1Readiness gate to run before you decide
Pages from the report
Get the report.
Three exit pathways, thirteen actions, and two worked cases. Free, and in your inbox in a minute.
Want to talk through an exit?Talk to Thomas
