Scouting for Growth

• The CamCom x ERGO Story: Scaling AI from Vision to Value

  On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Geetha Sham, MD and President of CamCom in Europe, and Sathes Singam, innovation scout and programme manager at ERGO Group. In this episode we will explore how ERGO’s Venture Client model turned a promising pilot into a production with great capability, then we will investigate what it really takes to deploy AI in regulated multi-market environments, and how governance – if used right – can become a growth accelerator not a roadblock. KEY TAKEAWAYS During initial discussions with our first insurance customer, we realised the process of inspection was time consuming, human heavy, subject to human fatigue resulting in expensive, long cycles and inconsistency. This gap is now filled by our AI model which provides a machine vision eye, using a mobile device accurately capturing images of vehicles which leads to damage assessments, reducing false positives. We want to democratise image capture, hence we have built our product in such a way that it can operate on any type of forum, and mobile devices made since 2016. That makes us a leader in our own area, staying focussed without scattering in the name of trying to do everything ourselves. There has been global adoption of AI – although what it does and how it is used varies – because every industry is seeing the value add. The standard way of implementing it is simple: It has to be aligned to the businesses and should not hamper the existing business or processes that exist within the industry/group. Edge cases must be addresses in a different way and modified so they are not completely controlled by the standard feedback learning. BEST MOMENTS ‘Startup collaboration, in my experience, should become top of management agenda.’ ‘It’s crucial to have someone locally who knows the culture in their particular country, and knows the people that need to be addressed.’ ‘It’s all about involving all relevant stakeholders in clear and transparent communication.’ ‘Each country has local laws, so there’s not only customisation, there’s also localisation that has to addressed. That’s where the governance model comes in handy.’ ABOUT THE GUESTS Geetha Sham is MD and President of CamCom in Europe. She is a seasoned technologist and scale-up strategist who has held senior roles at Oracle and Mindtree and is now building out CamCom’s European footprint from Dusseldorf. Sathes Singam is an innovation scout and programme manager at ERGO Group. He is the lynchpin behind ERGO’s deployment of CamCOm across the Baltics, Europe’s first testbed of this solution. ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers, accelerated over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner. Twitter LinkedIn Instagram Facebook  TikTok Email Website This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

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• Joel Agard: Driving into Zurich Insurance’s Venture Client Engine

  On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Joel Agard, Group Head of Innovation at Zurich Insurance, who has been driving bold, transformative startup collaborations across 40+ markets. His work has reshaped the way a global insurance giant works with startups, proving that innovation isn’t just about flashy tech – it’s about building real, meaningful partnerships that deliver results. From navigating the early days of Zurich’s Innovation Championship back in 2018 to scaling the program during a global pandemic – and now leading the charge into the future – Joel brings passion, strategy, and a touch of risk-taking to every conversation. KEY TAKEAWAYS The football World Cup in 2018 inspired us to piggyback on the concept of a competition to try and raise awareness of corporate/startup partnerships. Back then, working with startups in our industry wasn’t the norm, we were working with big technology companies. We asked ourselves; how can we show the art of the possible and show that working with startups can really work? This is when we invented the Zurich Innovation World Championship. In the beginning the pace that startups wanted to – and could – go didn’t always resonate with the pace Zurich wanted to go. We had to align expectations and create a safe environment where we could test fast and where it was OK to fail. I’ve fallen in love with cool technologies so many times, and I still do: I’m a geek. But, we had to learn that if these shiny, amazing technologies don’t really solve a problem for our customers or internal stakeholders, it’s not fit for purpose for us. It might be that it’s too early or is not a good fit for us. BEST MOMENTS ‘We at Zurich bring our reputation, brand, and insurance expertise from 150 years. Startups bring agility and speed because they are born in a digital world.’ ‘Failing in a big corporate often doesn’t have a good image. We’ve proved that failing fast and cheap is something we can achieve and is beneficial for the startups. It’s now a normal part of our process.’ ‘The Covid pandemic accelerated digital transformations, there were a lot of opportunities out there to accelerate our initiatives, so increased the number of startups, pilots.’ ‘It’s crucial to understand the gaps and problems you want to solve because we’d be wasting each other’s time otherwise.’ ABOUT THE GUEST Joel Agard is Group Head of Innovation at Zurich Insurance. With a career dedicated to fostering groundbreaking solutions, Joel spearheads Zurich's Venture Client Startup Engine, a program that drives innovation across 40+ markets worldwide. His work focuses on bridging the gap between startups and corporate needs, enabling Zurich to leverage cutting-edge technologies and solutions to stay ahead in the ever-evolving insurance landscape. LinkedIn Zurich Innovation Championship ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers, accelerated over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner. Twitter LinkedIn Instagram Facebook  TikTok Email Website This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

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• Gregor Gimmy: Pioneer of the Venture Client Model

  On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Gregor Gimmy, founder of 27pilots, a company dedicated to helping companies build and scale Venture Client units and allows them to benefit from startup innovations faster at large scale and significantly lower cost and risk than traditional corporate venturing methods. On this episode we will explore how this Venture Client model is shaping corporate innovation, the strategic benefits it offers, and how companies can adopt this game-changing approach to stay ahead in a competitive world. KEY TAKEAWAYS When I joined BMW in 2012 I was surprised to find out the small number of startups that it was leveraging to improve its technology landscape across its value chain. I told them that CVCs were investing in 2.8 startups per year. This is not nearly the number needed to solve all the technology challenges that we have, we need more like 100. My initial idea was not to invent a new model but to improve the current one. I was told that if they invested in 50 startups per year they would have around 250 startups in 5 years whose equity state we would have to manage, which is impossible. I concluded that VC isn’t scalable, but it didn’t solve the problem BMW had either, which was accessing, adopting, and transferring cutting edge technology fast because it’s about investment not technology transfer. These are two totally different business processes. We needed to look for a new approach: becoming a Venture Client. Accelerators and CVCs are indirect models – like using a third party’s battery technology in the cars you produce – you first make the investment and then do the adoption of the technology. The different in the Venture Client model is cutting out the middleman. If you want to be good at something you need a dedicated unit. If you do it part time it will only work partly. If you make it a department you can have more time you can dedicate to it, you can have a dedicated budget, you have a more solid KPI structure. BEST MOMENTS ‘More than getting into the world of Venture Client Modelling, I invented the world.’ ‘A Venture Client is a company that adopts startup technologies through procurement and M&A.’ ‘A corporate cannot compete against a good startup like Palantir or Oracle when they were startups.’ ‘The Venture Client model will displace Corporate Venture Capital to become the standard of corporate venturing.’ ABOUT THE GUEST As captain of the 27pilots endeavour, and the visionary behind the Venture Client model, Gregor GImmy focuses on advancing Venture Client knowledge and growing the global community through 27pilots’ corporate clients and academic allies. Gregor is deeply engaged in researching, publishing, and lecturing on the Venture Client model through leading business schools and top business engagements. Gregor is also a frequent speaker at startup-relevant conferences such as Slush, Web Summit, 4YFN and DLD. ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers, accelerated over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner. Twitter LinkedIn Instagram Facebook  TikTok Email Website This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

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• Let’s Kickoff The Venture Client Series

  On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks about the launch of a new series of podcasts exploring the Venture Client Model which is turning corporate innovation on its head. Instead of merely investing in startups and crossing fingers, big companies buy from startups to drive innovation – today, not years from now. Imagine a world where a major fortune 500, an automotive manufacturer, an insurance giant or a bank can plug in a cutting-edge startup solution as easily as adding a new app to your phone. The questions Sabine tackles include: What if your company’s next breakthrough isn’t built in-house, but bought from a startup in an early pilot? And what if being a startup’s customer is more powerful than being its investor? KEY TAKEAWAYS At its core, a venture client is a corporation that purchases and uses a startup’s solution to gain strategic benefit. No equity stakes, no controlling shares – just buying the solution early, when the startup is still a venture. The company becomes the startup’s client (often the first or an early client), giving the startup revenue and feedback, while the corporate gets to solve a problem with a cutting-edge product. Insurance is traditionally conservative – heavy on compliance, cautious with new tech – slow, one might say. But that’s exactly why venture clienting is so powerful here: it creates a safe sandbox for insurers to experiment with startups. – Zurich has no corporate VC arm at the group level, so everything they do with startups ends up as a venture client relationship or partnership. That means all the effort goes into tangible pilots and deployments, not minority stakes in startups that might not align with the business. It’s a bold approach, but clearly paying off. Imagine car insurance: traditionally, if you buy a policy in many countries, an agent might physically inspect your car, or if you have an accident, an adjuster needs to assess damage. CamCom replaces a lot of that with a DIY solution – the customer can just take a video of the car, and the AI will spot scratches, dents, cracked windshields, you name it, and even estimate repair costs. That means faster claims, smoother policy underwriting, and less hassle. BEST MOMENTS ‘The Venture Client Model flips the usual script: instead of investing in ten startups and hoping one succeeds, you pay a startup to solve a problem and start benefiting immediately.’ ‘This isn’t just theory. It’s happening now.’ ‘The model turns the corporation into what I like to call an innovation magnet – attracting the best startups because the word is out: “This company loves to buy new tech”.’ ‘By the end of this series, you’ll know the ins and outs of the model, from big-picture strategy down to on-the-ground tips, like why having a one-page startup contract can save you months of headaches, or why “impossible” should be banished from your vocabulary.’ ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers, accelerated over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner. ⁠Twitter⁠ ⁠LinkedIn⁠ ⁠Instagram⁠ ⁠Facebook⁠  ⁠TikTok⁠ ⁠Email⁠ ⁠Website⁠ This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

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• Lou Smith: Transforming Insurance with Neuron by WTW

  Sabine VdL talks to Lou Smith, a true trailblazer in the world of financial services and insurance. In today’s episode, we’ll dive into Lou’s incredible journey, explore the vision behind Neuron, and discuss the key takeaways from the latest report that insurance providers need to consider.    KEY TAKEAWAYS We all have moments in life where the last thing we want to look at is out credit rating and history, but those things can affect how you access financial services in the future. Lou was part of the team that delivered the first end-to-end mortgage renewal online, started to break down investments and getting it to the hands of the many rather than the few. Everybody says insurance is behind the rest of the financial services industry, and it’s a funny statement. It doesn’t matter. What I’m seeing in insurance in the last 5-6 years is that this conversation has circled around about what do we do? But in the last 12-18 months I’ve seen a passion for how do now think about using digital, distribution models, digital, analytics and AI and thinking of all of those things together and deliver distribution models that start to move industry forward. The challenge is always in leadership, culture and change adoption. This is because it’s really difficult to step into an unknown and think it’s going to be better than what you’re doing today. You want to power people with the data and capabilities so they can do what they’re brilliant at, which is focusing on the best product and position for their client. Neuron and others enable brokers to do that. You also want to attract a new generation into the brokering sector, but rather than have them focus on the admin of that sector, they should be having great conversations with clients. All the work we’re doing enables brokers to do that.   BEST MOMENTS ‘When starting my career I had a real passion for how to make the services we were offering more successful for clients and customers.’‘We care about the customer and making financial data accessible to you through the narratives we use.’‘I’d love to say this was all planned out, we didn’t call it anything or know what it looked like, we just started to bring data and technologies together to build ‘workflow’ and that’s now become cool.’‘We want to be the easiest, most predictable and consistent broker to work with.’   ABOUT THE GUEST Louise (or Lou) Smith is a trailblazer in the financial services and insurance industries, with a career spanning leadership roles across digital transformation, data, product innovation, distribution, technology, and operations.  Her journey has been marked by groundbreaking achievements, including delivering the UK's first steps into digital distribution at Barclays, leading the digital transformation of the Royal Bank of Scotland (including NatWest) during its turnaround to profitability, and becoming the first-ever Chief Digital Officer at Lloyd’s of London.  Currently, Louise is at the helm of Neuron, a transformative initiative aimed at redefining the insurance and financial services landscape. Through Neuron, she is driving innovation, collaboration, and growth, focusing on creating a more connected and customer-centric industry. WTWCO LinkedIn ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers, accelerated over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner. Twitter LinkedIn Instagram Facebook  TikTok Email Website This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

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