Writing a book is harder than I thought and more rewarding than I could have ever imagined.
Thinking through, designing, negotiating and implementing a large variety of corporate partnering transactions over the course of the last two decades has been and continues to be immensely satisfying, but at the same it has been very challenging to develop a coherent and consistent corporate partnering framework and distill strategies and best practices for many different types of transactions.
None of this would have been possible without the hundreds of entrepreneurs, startups, scaleups, corporates, investors and research institutions who entrusted my Cresco colleagues and me with their most challenging corporate partnering ideas, objectives and issues over the years. Special thanks also go out to the various research institutions, incubators and accelerators which have partnered with Cresco for purposes of spreading knowledge and expertise into the wider tech ecosystem. I’m eternally grateful to them.
Michel Akkermans (Pamica), Jürgen Ingels (SmartFin Capital), Wim Vanaverbeke (Surrey Business School), Peter De Keyzer (Growth Inc.), Karen Noel (Partech Ventures), Bart Vanhaeren (InvestSuite), Sven Decleyn (imec.istart) and Paul Van Emmerick (9.5 Magnitude Ventures) were so kind to form part of a review board. They have been incredibly supportive and patient in reviewing various manuscripts and providing very insightful comments and suggestions to make the book as useful and compelling as possible.
Sincere gratitude to the entrepreneurs and executives who spent several hours with me to explain their approach to corporate partnering transactions and exchange thoughts on strategies and best practices for corporate partnering transactions: Sven Decleyn (imec. istart), Michel Akkermans (ex Clear2Pay and FICS), Koen Matthijs (Nemetschek) Paul Van Dun (Leuven Research & Development), Michael Callens (Rein4ced), Manoël Rekinger (Elia), Bert Baeck (ex Trendminer), Wim De Wispelaere (ex Amplidata), Paul Van Emmerick (9.5 Magnitude Ventures – The Park), Paul Van Coillie (Arco Information – Soluz.io), Kris De Ryck (itsme), Boris Bogaert and Wim Derkinderen (Rydoo), Pieterjan Bouten (Showpad), Michael Grandfils and David Millan (Lab Box – D’Ieteren) and Bieke Van Gorp (Qompium). Their enthusiasm and drive have been very inspiring.
I can also not sufficiently stress that writing this book would not have been possible without my trusted and much appreciated Cresco colleagues. My sincere gratitude for the pleasant collaboration, their innovative insights and relentless efforts to support our clients. Special thanks go out to Pieter Capiau, Yannick Verrycke and Olivier Van Raemdonck for co-authoring certain chapters.
To my family and friends: sincere gratitude for your understanding and encouragement during the many months of mental or physical absence while working on this book.
Finally, special thanks to Alexis Bogaert, Liesbeth Declercq and Marianne Garreyn of die Keure whose trust, patience and encouragement were crucial in getting over the finish line.