2024 Counter Club Best of the Best CVCs
Presenting a select group of corporate venture capital funds that lead categories in investment pace, deal velocity and financial orientation.
Counter Club started as a small gathering of 35 corporate investors in 2019. Since then, we have grown to reach and interact with 600+ funds and 1,200+ investors. Our AGM has morphed into the premier gathering of CVCs, over 500 investors attended this past September. That same day, we released the 2024 State of Corporate Venture Capital with SVB, the fourth year we’ve done the survey.
Through these various touchpoints, we have built a data-driven community to help provide transparency to CVCs. Our founding General Partners bring 20+ years of CVC experience to Counterpart Ventures and we are the best in the world at bridging traditional VC and corporate VC.
We are excited to present of top-performing CVC funds in four distinct categories: the financial<>strategic orientation, the speed at which funds are able to invest, the velocity at which funds are investing, and notable recently formed CVC funds.
While our network does not cover the entire CVC ecosystem, we are capturing the most active funds and deal activity through our community, events and annual CVC survey co-authored by SVB. If you feel there are funds missing, please add their names in the comments.
We are also highlighting stand-out community members who help us be the best in the world at bridging traditional VC and Corporate VC. These members and ambassadors hosted events, shared deals & engaged on our invite-only platform for CVCs (counterclub.vc).
Please note that each list is ordered alphabetically and nonhierarchical.
Top Financially-Orientated CVCs
CVCs who became more independent this year and are highly financial orientated, creating a distinction from a purely strategic mandate:
- Blue Shield Venture Partners
- BMW i Ventures
- Mouro Capital
- Titanium Ventures
- PRuVen Capital
Honorable Mention
- Brookfield Growth
- Crédit Agricole Nouvelles Activités (New Ventures)
- FEMSA Ventures
Investing at a Fast Pace
CVCs who, on average, can close a deal in under 30 days. From first meeting to investment committee, this group has a tight process in place for how quickly they can close a deal:
- American Family Ventures
- Citi Ventures
- Dell Technologies Capital
- Nationwide Ventures
- Zoom Ventures
Honorable Mention
- Carta Ventures
- Next47
High Scorers
Investing with velocity, this group of CVCs typically completes 20 or more deals per year:
- Cisco Investments
- Databricks Ventures
- In-Q-Tel
- NVentures (NVIDIA)
- Salesforce Ventures
Honorable Mention
- HearstLab
- Lockheed Martin
- M Ventures (Merck)
- Toyota Ventures
- Wayra (Telefonica)
New Kids on the Block
Recently launched CVC Funds who have hit the ground running:
- BlueScopeX
- CNH Ventures
- Ki Tua Fund (Fonterra Group)
- Mozilla Ventures
- Prisma Ventures (Ulta Beauty)
Honorable Mention
Keep your eyes on these funds launched in 2024
- Kyocera Ventures
- Allison Transmission
- R3D3 Ventures (Rong360)
Standout Community Members
We started with a community in 2019— a small gathering of 30 CVC leaders has blossomed into an ecosystem of 1,200+ members from all over the world. We launched the Counter Club online platform (counterclub.vc) to further connect investors on opportunities and deals. This would not be possible without Counter Club members sharing their time and knowledge back to the community.
Advisory Member of the Year
Sunidh Jani, Director, Business Development and Venture Investments, Eaton
Sunidh has been an exemplary advisor to Counter Club. He helped the Counterpart Team ideate the new maturity cohorts (new, intermediate and distinguished) introduced in the 2024 State of CVC Report. He also led a Counter V breakout session with the intermediate group on Talent Retention and Incentivizing your Team.
Ambassador of the Year
Brian Bernstein, Investor, Rich Products Ventures
Brian and the Rich Products Ventures team have been core Counter Club community members since our experimental days. Earlier this year, we had the pleasure of co-hosting a happy hour with Brian around the Future of Food Tech conference. Check out this Q&A we did with Brian ahead of the event.
Quote from Brian on Collaborating as a CVC: “I joined the supply chain Deals & Diligence event in January and thought it was great. In general, I find CVCs are very collaborative and have a perspective that traditional investors may not have because they are often ultimately the customers. We see a lot of value in collaborating with other food retailers, food manufacturers, and ingredient companies.”
Most Active Counter Club Members
Shoutout to these standout members of our community who hosted events, shared deals & engaged on our invite-only platform for CVCs.
- Anne Charpignon, Convivialité Ventures (Pernod Ricard)
- Betty Lee, Woven Capital, Toyota’s Growth Fund
- Isabella Thomas, FT Ventures (Financial Times Group)
- Matt Tamburro, M&T Bank
- Paulina Szyzdek, Bosch Ventures
Feel free to comment with any CVC funds or Counter Club members you think we’re missing or we should look out for in 2025!
-The Counterpart Team: Patrick, Joe, Mikey, Tanvi, Nandini and Abbie
More about Counterpart Ventures: We are a San Francisco and Los Angeles-based VC fund investing in B2B SaaS startups at Seed, and Series A. We help build companies by providing meaningful access to real customers and strategic partnerships via our corporate venture capital community called the Counter Club. Counter Club represents the most active and engaged network of CVCs among any traditional VC firm. We provide transparency to CVCs through the power of this global community. Corporate investors can request to join here: https://counterclub.vc.
