The term venture studio has gained popularity in recent years in the world of startups and corporate innovation. What exactly does this model consist of and why are so many organizations adopting it? In this article we will explore what a venture studio is, from its traditional definition – where startups are built systematically – to its evolution into corporate environments. Finally, we will look at how Vivid Vision adapt this model to drive innovation in established companies, scaleups and investment funds.
The traditional concept of a venture studio
A venture studio (also known as a startup studio or venture builder) is an organization designed to systematically create startups. Unlike a traditional incubator or accelerator, which usually supports external entrepreneurs, a venture studio generates its own business ideas and develops them internally. In fact, “unlike an accelerator, a venture studio does not fund existing startups, but creates multiple startups in-house”.
We can think of a venture studio as an “idea factory” with an internal team dedicated to iterate until a scalable business model is found: full-time employees focused on achieving product-market fit and a reproducible business model.
How does this model work in practice? The typical process starts with the incubation of an idea (either originated by the studio itself or in co-creation with a partner). The studio’s internal team builds a minimum viable product (MVP) and launches it to the market to validate the idea, seeking early customers and confirmation that the solution solves a real need.If the idea passes a series of milestones and tests (often referred to as “Go/No Go” decisions), then the studio forms a full-fledged startup: it often recruits external entrepreneurial founders to scale and manage it for the long term.
This approach considerably reduces the risk of failure in the early stages. Unlike an accelerator that operates a short program (e.g., 3 months) for many startups, the venture studio has no fixed timeline: it pivots and tweaks the idea as long as necessary until a viable model is found. It also unceremoniously discards ideas that do not show market traction (“kills” most of its ideas if there is no evidence that they can scale profitably). Thanks to this rigorous selection, startups coming out of a venture studio tend to have higher success rates than traditional startups backed only by venture capital.
Another key feature is that the venture studio not only provides capital to create the new company, but also shared resources and equipment. A 2025 study highlights that venture studios provide both seed capital and significant support resources: teams of employees, office space, equipment and software tools for entrepreneurs. This means that a startup born in a studio starts with infrastructure and staff from day one, something that would normally take an independent startup time and money to build. In exchange for this comprehensive support and the lower risk to the entrepreneur, the venture studio usually takes a larger equity stake in the startups created (in some cases between 30% and 80% equity, compared to the ~5-10% that an accelerator would take). In short, the traditional venture studio model builds startups “in series”: ideating, validating, launching and providing shared capital and resources, with the goal of creating more robust companies from conception.
The evolution towards corporate venture studios
Initially, venture studios focused on creating independent startups, but in recent years the model has evolved and has also been adopted by established corporations as part of their innovation strategies. In fact, the growth of studios has been explosive: according to data from Global Corporate Venturing, more than half of the more than 800 venture studios in the world were founded in the last five years, and global corporations such as Procter & Gamble, Mars or Standard Chartered Bank have launched their own internal venture studios. This trend reflects the fact that large companies see the venture studio format as a way to innovate in an agile and systematic way, combining entrepreneurial speed with the assets of the parent company.
This corporate approach is sometimes called corporate venture studio or corporate venture building. Its logic is different from that of traditional corporate venture capital (CVC): instead of investing in dozens of external startups in the hope that one will be a strategic fit, the company builds the new startups in-house, focusing on opportunities aligned with its vision. As a Silicon Foundry analysis explains, CVC units are external in nature (investing in innovative startups outside the company), while a corporate venture studio is internally oriented: it takes technologies or areas adjacent to the company’s business and builds new businesses around them, within the organization. In other words, the company becomes a co-creator of the startup, not just an investor. This allows innovation without the need to invest capital directly in external startups, taking advantage instead of internal resources and knowledge to develop the idea.
The benefits of this corporate model are several. On the one hand, the internal venture studio attracts entrepreneurial talent to the organization (offering entrepreneurs a stable environment from which to launch new initiatives). This “intrapreneurial” talent is dedicated to solving the parent company’s strategic problems through new innovative solutions. In fact, it is often the case that the corporation itself is the first client of the startups born in its venture studio. For example, the bank Standard Chartered created a fintech within its studio that was later adopted by the same entity as a solution; or the consumer firm P&G has developed new products through its studio that it then introduced to the market by taking advantage of its network. This scheme also provides discretion and control: the company can experiment with new business models in relative isolation from the core, without announcing its intentions to the market (avoiding alerting competitors), until the project is mature. In short, the corporate venture studio offers a “turnkey” way to innovate: the company defines the challenge or area of opportunity, and the studio provides the team, the methodology and the development of the new venture, delivering a validated business that the corporation can scale.
Large consulting firms and specialized firms have been driving this evolution. For example, BCG Digital Ventures (now part of BCG X) has been operating for years as a corporate venture builder that partners with established companies to develop innovations and turn them into independent businesses. Together with incumbent companies, BCG DV has launched more than 200 new ventures in sectors ranging from B2C to B2B, co-creating successful startups without the corporation having to rely exclusively on external startups. McKinsey has detected that this trend is on the rise: by 2023 more than 50% of CEOs globally placed the creation of new businesses among their top three strategic priorities, a sign that companies are recognizing that startups are becoming increasingly important.This is a sign that companies recognize the importance of generating revenue streams beyond the traditional business. Even governments have joined the wave: Singapore’s Corporate Venture Launchpad program, for example, co-finances corporations to work with designated venture studios (such as Leap by McKinsey) in incubating new digital businesses.
Another authoritative voice, Boston Consulting Group (BCG), reports that when corporations apply a disciplined approach to venture building, they can achieve much higher success rates than conventional venture investing. A BCG study noted that the creation of new businesses within a company can achieve a 66% success rate, compared to rates of 20-30% typical of traditional venture capital.. This is because the corporation can leverage its advantages (market knowledge, customer base, data, distribution capabilities) to leverage the nascent startup, something that an external team would not have. For its part, Deloitte has developed its initiative Venture Pathinitiative, which provides lean startup methodologies and structures to its corporate clients to launch new business models faster and cheaper than traditional methods. In essence, firms such as BCG, McKinsey and Deloitte are acting as catalysts for corporate venture studios, providing expertise, methodologies and multidisciplinary talent for companies to innovate without large upfront capital outlays and with a focus on concrete results.
The Vivid Vision model adapted to the corporate world
At Vivid Vision we have adopted this venture studio concept and adapted it to collaborate closely with corporations, scaleups and investment funds in the creation of new businesses and innovative solutions. Our philosophy is based on addressing real business challenges faced by our partner organizations, and applying the venture studio model as a way to solve them in an agile way.
Vivid Vision integrates a proprietary model, an expert team and a global network of emerging technologies to solve complex business challenges.
We solve strategic challenges by connecting your company with best practices and state-of-the-art technologies to achieve your goals faster and more efficiently.
At Vivid Vision we accompany our clients throughout the entire transformation and innovation process, from initial diagnosis to scalable implementation. Our methodology is structured in three main phases:
1. Identification
We start by detecting the real needs of the business, based on a deep analysis of its challenges and opportunities. We focus on identifying the strategic pain points that are holding back growth or efficiency, such as:
- 🧩 Operational blockages and bottlenecks in internal processes.
- 📊 Limitations in data management, visualization and analysis.
- 🔗 Lack of integration with emerging technologies or existing systems.
Ideation
We co-create with our clients customized solutions that combine technology, design and strategy. This collaborative ideation process allows us to define innovative initiatives that solve identified pain points:
- 🧠 Development of customized solutions adapted to the customer’s reality.
- 🤝 Selection and validation of the most appropriate technology partners and suppliers.
- 🧪 Design of pilots and proofs of concept with tangible impact.
3. Implantation
We move from idea to action by integrating technology and processes in an efficient way and aligned with business objectives. We do this with a long-term vision and a focus on scalability:
- ⚙️ Robust technical implementation and support for internal change.
- 🔄 Integration with existing systems, without operational frictions.
- 📈 Scaling of solutions with measurable business impact.
We have done it before on countless occasions.
We work in five main areas where we identify high-impact opportunities:
- Strategy and Growth: development of new lines of business, services or strategic initiatives that drive revenue and company expansion.
- Operations and Efficiency: startups focused on optimizing operational processes, improving productivity or reducing costs through technology and new models.
- Customers and Market: projects to access new customer segments, improve customer experience or reinvent the value proposition in the market.
- Technology and Product: creation of digital solutions or innovative products (e.g., AI-based platforms, applications, specialized hardware) that solve specific needs.
- Culture and Innovation: initiatives aimed at transforming organizational culture, fostering internal innovation or developing talent capabilities (e.g. training platforms, collaboration tools, etc.).
Unlike a venture capital or accelerator, Vivid Vision does not invest financial capital in the startups or scaleups we integrate or co-create with our corporate partners. Our key contribution is: proprietary model, an expert team, and a global network of emerging technologies to solve complex business challenges..:
In conclusion, a venture studio is an innovative formula to create startups and scaleups in a recurrent and successful way, combining capital, talent and shared resources to minimize risks. Its evolution into the corporate arena has opened a new avenue for established companies to innovate as startups and scaleups, but leveraging their own strengths rather than just competing with them. Models supported by researchers from Harvard Business Review, BCG, McKinsey or Deloitte show that this approach can accelerate the transformation and growth of organizations in a more controlled and effective way. Vivid Vision is part of this new generation of venture studios, serving as a bridge between the entrepreneurial world and corporations to turn business challenges into new business opportunities. By adopting the best practices of traditional venture studios – agility, experimentation, product-market fit – and applying them to real business problems, we help create the future for our clients today. Companies that incorporate this model are better positioned to reinvent themselves, diversify their revenues and stay competitive in a constantly changing environment.
