Zusammenfassung:
This paper adds to the literature of external corporate venturing, especially corporate venture capitals (CVCs) and corporate accelerators (CAs) by providing an overview of the German corporate venturing market and by offering first intriguing findings based on a novel and unique hand-collected dataset. It presents insights regarding the set-up, organization and staffing of corporate venturing units, as well as characteristics of start-ups under management. This study distinguishes between the corporate venturing unit's mission, organization, governance and network as well as vehicle leads. Moreover, differences in the characteristics of start-ups supported by corporate venturing units are detected. This work offers unique insights on the German corporate venturing landscape and thereby serves as starting point for future and more elaborate research.