Inside CVC: Berlin CVC Open Innovation Summit, Part 1: Capital, Policy, and Risk

In late November, leaders from across Europe gathered in Berlin for the first European edition of the CVC Open Innovation Summit. What emerged was not another debate about whether innovation matters, but a far more urgent question: is Europe actually set up to execute?

In Part 1 of this special two-part Inside CVC series, host Steve Schmith takes listeners inside the Berlin summit to explore why this moment feels different. Corporate investors, policymakers, founders, and ecosystem leaders speak candidly about capital gaps, risk tolerance, regulation, and the growing pressure to move from ambition to action.

Across conversations with summit co-host Philipp Willigmann, German Bundestag Financial Policy Spokesperson Katharina Beck, venture investor Tanja Emmerling, PwC’s Florian Noell, SAP’s Florian Kunzke, Roche’s Caroline Creven-Fourier, and former Inside CVC guest Martin Hüllen, a clear pattern emerges. Europe does not lack ideas or talent. What it struggles with is execution at scale.

This episode explores:

• Why access to capital alone is not enough
• How regulation and policy must keep pace with innovation
• The growing tension between risk-taking and hesitation
• What execution actually looks like inside corporations
• Why human capital, culture, and trust are central to innovation
• And why alignment, not awareness, is now Europe’s binding constraint

Berlin did not produce easy answers. Instead, it surfaced the hard work still ahead.

In Part 2, the conversation turns forward—into AI, sovereignty, policy alignment, and what real collaboration must become if insight is going to turn into action.

Transcript

Steve: 0:00

Welcome to Inside CVC, the podcast that brings together leaders in innovation and capital investment to explore the trends shaping the business of corporate venture capital. I'm your host, Steve Schmidt, and together with Philip Willigman, we're speaking to corporate investors, entrepreneurs, and ecosystem builders driving the future of innovation. InsideCVC is brought to you by UPath Advisors, helping corporations and startups unlock sustainable growth through strategic partnerships. To learn more, visit uPath.com. That's the letter u hyphenpath.com. And to catch up on all of our episodes, search InsideCVC on your favorite podcast platform or find us online at uPath.com forward slash podcast. In late November, leaders from across Europe gathered in Berlin for the first European edition of the CVC Open Innovation Summit. It wasn't just another conference on venture capital. Corporate investors, policymakers, founders, and technologists came together to ask someone comfortable questions about capital, about risk, about regulation, about whether Europe is actually set up to compete in a world defined by AI, energy transition, geopolitics, and demographic change. The summit was hosted by UPAT Advisors in partnership with a group of corporate co-hosts, public institutions, and ecosystem organizations. It was also co-hosted alongside the Asia-Berlin Summit, reflecting a broader ambition, cross-border collaboration, shared learning, and fewer silos. Over the special two-part series, we're going to take you inside the summit. You'll hear directly from people shaping policy, deploying capital, and building systems that determine where innovation actually scales. Not sound bites for headlines, real conversations from leaders grappling with what comes next. And before we get into the substance, it's worth understanding how unusual this gathering really was. Because what surprised many people in the room was not just what was discussed, but how the summit came together in the first place. Here's Philip, co-host of Inside CVC and one of the founders of the CVC Open Innovation Summit, reflecting on what it took to make the Berlin event happen.

Philipp: 2:25

I can't believe that we were able to pull this off the way we did. Nobody of the co-hosts, as you know, we are very much focusing on getting co-hosts together, corporates where we can understand the region, who can help guide with the agenda, we can also bring the network. None of the individuals who supported the European edition of the CVC Open Innovation Summit knew each other four months before the summit. There were some light touch points. But when we were sitting together at the end of the summit, looking at each of us, saying, we pulled this one off, not knowing each other, never have met in person. I think everybody was overwhelmed by the fact that it came out so positive, so many positive voices, getting such a diverse group from across Europe into the room at that senior level, and having a discussion about strategic capital, what the responsibilities and the roles of corporates are, how we can invest better together, how we can support the European innovation ecosystem. So I would say it was pretty remarkable, and there was an amazing team effort, a true open innovation project, if you will, in Europe.

Steve: 3:40

What stood out immediately was not just who was in the room, but how aligned they were around the shared challenge. One of the recurring themes across the summit was the idea that Europe doesn't lack innovation, it lacks something else. Here's Philip.

Philipp: 3:55

I think the challenge Europe is facing is more a question around capital and being more open to risk. I think companies like organizations like the Heite Gunner Fond, which is heavily focused on early stage investing, like first checks into startups, they're doing a remarkable job. But I think what came out of the discussion, and that's some something discussed all over Europe, is really that there is a gap, or that at a certain stage of a company, then there is not enough capital available in Europe, or not enough people who were willing to put the risk into writing bigger checks. And that's when a lot of companies are leaving Europe.

Steve: 4:38

Beyond access to capital to drive scaling, regulation and policy were a constant thread throughout the conversation in Berlin. What became clear early in the summit was that this wasn't just a conversation about startups, funding rounds, or innovation theater. It was a conversation about the systems that determine whether innovation actually scales. A conversation exploring Europe's ability today and tomorrow to compete globally to retain its most promising companies and to turn centuries of deep engineering know-how and technical capability into economic impact. Impact driven not only by founders and investors, but also driven by how quickly institutions are willing to move from debate to action. That tension between ambition and execution, between policy intent and real-world outcomes came through again and again throughout the summit. And it wasn't just coming from founders or corporate leaders, it came directly from inside government. Katarina Beck is the financial policy spokesman for Alliance 90, the Greens, in the German Bundestag. She joined the summit to speak directly with investors, corporate venture leaders, and founders about what has to change if Europe wants to stay competitive in a world where capital, talent, and innovation move fast. Here's Katarina Beck.

Katharina Beck: 6:04

Germany and Europe must speed up a lot and think much bigger than uh we are doing uh today, still, at least some of us. And uh that we need to uh wake up, that the time of talking about, for example, capital markets union is over and that we have to act, actually. So when we look into VC volumes in China, even they are five times higher than uh with relationship to the GDP than they are in Germany. So we need to think German-wise, but also Europe-wise, because in the new era of competition between really, really large economies like China and uh the US, for example, Europe needs to rethink the asset of its market. The single market is a real big asset, but it's not reflected on the capital and investment side, and that needs to come now.

Steve: 7:03

Katarina made it clear that Europe's challenge is not awareness. The problem is execution. Capital markets reform, regulatory simplification, and policy alignment are no longer abstract debates. They are prerequisites for scale, and they require institutions to move faster than they historically have. But policy alone doesn't close that gap. Even with, as Phillips said, more capital, and to Katrina's point, better rules, progress ultimately depends on who is willing to take risk and how much risk they are prepared to carry. That tension showed up throughout the summit, especially in conversation about what happens after the seed stage, when ambition meets hesitation. Tanya Emmerling has spent her career moving between corporate innovation and venture capital. She's been a partner at high-tech Glinda Funds for the past 12 years, and today she leads the digital tech team in Berlin. At the summit, she moderated a panel discussion exploring geopolitics and strategic risks impacting Europe's future. That included Katerina and former Inside CVC guests Martin Holland and Gerald Knaus. She brought her experience shifting into venture capital and her point of view on risk to the summit agenda and to my recent conversation with her. Here's Tanya Emmerling on the behavioral gap related to risk and risk taking that still holds Europe back.

Tanja Emmerling: 8:29

What I learned when I shifted into venture capital was like how much you have to really be able to rely on risks, really, or be a risk taker to drive innovation. It doesn't help if you're really looking at your profitable cash products and hoping that innovation will be there around that. So you need to need to step outside and take the risk and um go further. And I think like economically, we are now in this situation, and from geopolitics and everything that comes around is like we all know what is lacking here in Europe, you know, economy wise, uh structure-wise, whatever. But um we now have to take the step. We now have to get into the doing and really invest in it to get it back to the future.

Steve: 9:20

That hesitation shows up inside corporations as well. As markets tighten, exits slow, and uncertainty rises, innovation teams are being asked to justify themselves faster with fewer guarantees. Florian Knoll leads corporate development MA in innovation at PWC. At the summit, he moderated a panel on reimagining value creation and addressed a question many CVC teams are quietly wrestling with. How do you prove strategic value when patience is running out?

Florian Noell: 9:53

If you look at the European economy, it's under pressure. So uh, if we talk to our clients, if you talk to the C-suite of our clients, they are facing a lot of potential ways of getting disrupted. They are facing a climate crisis, they are facing um instable supply chains caused by wars and and trade wars and everything. They are facing the challenges and opportunities, of course, coming with AI and technologies, and the only three of maybe ten possible ways to get disrupted regulatory change and everything. So a lot of change. And the question is, is it can you can you turn this into into an opportunity right? Values are in motion, um market shares are uh changing, and we have a lot of challenges in the room, in the global room. It can be big tech from Silicon Valley, it can be uh emerging stars from the US, from Asia. So there's a lot of pressure. And if you are talking to those clients, um the question is not is there any kind of disruption? The only question is which kind of of disruption is is for this company, for this business model, the most most important, most challenging. And um I try to to open the mind for the impact of open innovation again. And if you want to reinvent your traditional business model, I strongly believe that you have to look into how startups and and venture capital doing and pushing innovation. And uh you have to find your way of being a good uh corporate innovator.

Steve: 11:46

Florian's point landed with a lot of people in the room. Value creation doesn't come from chasing faster returns, it comes from staying committed when the timeline stretches, from backing innovation long enough for it to actually matter. But that kind of value creation requires something Europe still wrestles with: not more ideas, not more panels, not more white papers. It requires conviction, a willingness to take risk, and leaders who are ready to move without waiting for permission. Once again, here's Philip.

Philipp: 12:20

The uncomfortable truth is Europe needs more courage, less risk aversion, less waiting for permission, more cross-border collaboration and just more conviction.

Steve: 12:33

Courage is the starting point, but courage alone doesn't build markets. What came next in Berlin was a sharper question. Once leaders decide to act, what does execution actually look like? The question surfaced repeatedly in the working sessions and on stage, and it's one that Martin Hullen has been pressing for some time. Martin joined the Berlin Summit as a panelist, and Inside CVC listeners may remember him from a previous episode, where he warned that Europe was running out of time to stay in the phase of ideas and frameworks. At the summit, he returned to that same theme: not theory, not ambition, implementation. Here's Martin Howen from our conversation on Inside CVC talking about Eurostack and the journey from idea to implementation.

Martin Hullin: 13:23

Eurostack, when it was first conceptualized, was not much more than a term, really. And it took a while and it took a few different streams to actually sit down and say, okay, what does it actually mean? What are metrics that we could utilize, for example, to define what the different stacks are? What are certain uh recommendations that can be given in order to incentivize also action across the different layers, for example. But now also when the question comes up of implementation and what do we actually want to achieve with it, this aspect of it, it not yet being fully defined, now needs to be tackled ASAP. The rules are being written right now, the world is shifting fast, a lot of capital is also currently taken into the hands. And I think that there is this reboot within European decision-making circles of saying, okay, we gotta get our act together now. These developments will define market access, they will define procurement logics and also the types of innovation framers and incentivization mechanisms to come. And the recommendation, I think, here for those board-level leaders that would like to also benefit from them is I think we should invest early in alignment to shape these future markets and don't be forced to adapt later under pressure.

Steve: 14:44

Martin was talking about execution at the system level, markets, rules, incentives, timing. But those shifts only matter if companies are actually structured to act on them. Because when the direction is clear, execution still breaks down inside organizations. Budgets reset, priority shift, long-term bets get crowded out by short-term pressure. That's where Florian Knoll from PwC sees the real fault line. From his work advising corporates and leading the firm's corporate venturing efforts, Florian sees the difference between companies that talk about innovation and those that are actually built to sustain it.

Florian Noell: 15:23

Once again, here's Florian Knoll. One main question is how to maybe two main questions. One is how to create value. Yeah. What are results which will impress the C-suite and and will motivate them to continue those operations? And the second thing is, but sometimes it's too late or often too late, it's about how to become more independent. So many corporate venture units are business units, teams investing out of the balance sheet. They don't have committed capital, they don't have a fund structure. And that's that's of course very easy to stop investing if you are only if you depend on on budget decisions deal by deal uh done by the board. If you have a capital commitment, if you have a fund, for example, everyone fund structures and stuff like that, then you can bridge a period like we see at some moment easier.

Steve: 16:23

As the conversation in Berlin unfolded, a pattern started to emerge. Across panels and side discussions, people kept circling the same tension. Europe does a strong job getting companies started. But once those companies need to take bigger risks, write larger checks, and commit for longer horizons, the momentum often slows. That question came up directly during the summit sessions, not as a criticism, but as a reflection on how innovation is funded and supported once it moves past the early stages. Tanya Emmerling addressed that tension head on from her perspective as a venture investor, working closely with corporates. Once again, here's Tanya Emmerling.

Tanja Emmerling: 17:07

I think the first thing of role is like we lack capital. If we have a lot of capital, like venture capital, like we do, uh in the very early seed stage, um, we can build up companies, we set them up, but when they need the larger tickets, and that already starts beyond, let's say, 20, 30 million euros, then we need um investors out of outside of Europe. And if it's going in even larger tickets, so beyond the 100 million, then it's really, really uh an empty space. So we really rely on the large investors from outside. So we're missing that capital. But we have a lot of very profitable enterprises in Europe. We have very cash-rich uh companies, family offices, and I think they need to give back. They need to invest in that infrastructure in these young companies. And even so do you have the returns back to Europe?

Steve: 18:04

As the Berlin conversations moved from capital and policy into execution, another dimension kept surfacing. Even if the money is available, even if the frameworks improve, execution still depends on people inside organizations being able to act. Several panels returned to the same question: Do companies actually have the cultures, leadership readiness, and internal trust required to turn strategy into action? That's where Caroline Crevin Foyer's perspective landed. Caroline leads inclusion and belonging at Roche, and she talks about human potential as a competitive factor, not as a soft concept, but as an operational one. She framed execution as something that only works when organizations create environments where people thrive, can take responsibility, collaborate across functions, and sustain change over time. Here's Caroline.

Caroline Creven Fourrier: 19:04

And Europe faces really dual challenge of on one side rapid demographic aging, and at the same time the need to sustain robust social systems. And this intersection mattered because of a few things. Because of sustainable health and cost uh would be one, and and also the human potential and innovation. And what I mean with sustainable health and cost, um my view is that a healthy population is key to productivity and to social stability in countries. So my work in that space really is about implementing well being strategies, uh, significantly reducing costs associated with mental ill health and uh also enhance overall business value for organizations. And uh here uh we can see that technology. Is really the primary scalable solution for managing uh rising healthcare costs without sacrificing uh quality of what we deliver. And the other element is also this human potential and innovation. And here to innovate, um, Europe needs highly engaged and creative talents. And and we must cultivate uh a culture of psychological safety and trust to ensure a diversity of thought, uh, yeah, and that this diversity of thought uh translates into uh business innovation and impact at scale.

Steve: 20:37

As the conversations in Berlin moved from panels to working sessions, something subtle but important happened. The tone shifted. Less positioning, less posturing, more honesty about what's actually hard inside of organizations. For Florian Kunsky, Global Director of AI Strategy at SAP, who we'll hear more from in part two, that shift wasn't accidental. It was the result of something the summit intentionally created: a space where people could be open about uncertainty, friction, and shared challenges.

Florian Kunzke: 21:12

I think really uh Philip Willigman said this, right? In the beginning, he said, let's be vulnerable here, let's use this as a safe space. And I think this was really also the secret source for that event to become so successful, because everybody was openly sharing concerns, also issues inside the companies, maybe. And and that openness just facilitated a joint discussion because you were able to see, hey, everybody has these concerns, everybody has these issues. But if we work together, we can find solutions together and move ahead.

Steve: 21:44

That openness mattered because once people start speaking honestly, something else becomes visible. Not just the ambition in the room, but the habits that still get in the way. And that's where Phillips' reflection landed.

Philipp: 22:00

I I mean, I to be very honest, to be very honest, and I, you know, I'm German, I love I love Europe, I love Germany. I was shocked how much people are thinking in silos. We did the working groups in in the US for two years now. People are directly jumping in, they know it's a structured conversation, they know they have to step out of their comfort zone, step out of their role, and think about the question. In Europe, in Germany, no way. Everybody was in their line, just thinking about where they are, where they sit, not getting out of their silos, not being really constructive around how do we how do we answer the questions we want to discuss in this working group. Clearly sharing what they thought is important, even though it may not have had to do anything with the topic. So it's very, very different experience. Um, and and in that sense, like, you know, that ability to collaborate and work together and really creating a joint perspective and then and then a plan behind it didn't go as smooth as I as I would have expected it. And uh it took a long, long time to get people out of their silos.

Steve: 23:05

By the time the Berlin conversations wrapped, one thing was clear. This wasn't a room struggling to understand the moment. The urgency is understood, the risks are known, and the stakes are no longer theoretical. What Berlin revealed instead was something more difficult to solve: alignment across policy and capital, across corporate strategy and execution, across cultures that reward caution, and systems that now demand speed. Again and again the conversation returned to the same tension. Europe has the ideas, it has the talent, it has the institutional strength, but turning those assets into momentum requires decisions that cut across silos, incentives, and timelines. That's what made this summit different. Not that everyone agreed, but that the friction was visible and that people were willing to sit with it openly. The CVC Open Innovation Summit in Berlin didn't try to manufacture answers. It surfaced the work that still needs to be done. And that's where we'll pick up next. In part two of this recap, we'll explore what alignment actually looks like in practice, how leaders are thinking about AI, sovereignty, regulation, and human systems working together in harmony, and what that collaboration has to become if insight is going to turn into action.