The Yin & Yang of Capital: Pre-Summit Roundtable with Nicolas Sauvage

Strategic and financial capital at one table, for one candid conversation.

Corporate and independent venture capital back many of the same founders, but they answer to different masters. A CVC is judged on returns and on what it brings back to the parent company. A VC is judged on the fund. Both say they're patient investors, and both get impatient. The gap is usually narrower than it looks, and the founder is the one who feels it first.

On Friday 4 December, ahead of the Corporate Innovation Summit in Perth, we're bringing 10 to 15 VC and CVC capital allocators into a Sydney boardroom for a working session with Nicolas Sauvage, President of TDK Ventures, hosted by Wilson Casado, Chair of the Corporate Innovation Series, Co-founder and Managing Partner of Visagio Australia.

We'll work through the calls that sit between the two: how a corporate venture fund should be measured, when corporate and financial investors should co-invest and when one should step back, and what keeps a corporate-startup partnership worth it 3 years in, for the founder as much as for the investors.

The only prep: bring 1 real decision or tension from your own portfolio.

Arrival and coffee from 9:45am. We start at 10am, break for lunch in the room, and finish at 2pm. By invitation only, under Chatham House rule. No slides, no presentations.

This roundtable is the Sydney leg of the Corporate Innovation Summit 2026, held on Wednesday 9 December at AIM WA in Perth: https://events.humanitix.com/corporate-innovation-summit-2026