What does it mean to be an innovative company?
Valuer.ai has published a list of major innovative companies that through Corporate Innovation Labs, Corporate Garages, Corporate Investment Programmes, Corporate Hackathon, Corporate Startup Funding and Corporate Startup Awards, welcome external visitors, partner with early-stage companies and involve their own employees in order to create new solutions, new products, and new processes.
All innovative firms are aware that to be a changemaker, they need to take the three following steps:
- Invest in something smaller.
- Provide the tools and internal resources to grow quickly.
- Provide additional resources for external innovators with disruptive partners.
Most of the startups or actors taking part in special corporate programs, labs, hackathon, etc., are often lacking resources, but not ideas. Be a changemaker.
The 100 Companies That Know How to Innovate have been able to identify new opportunities and are now cooperating with them to explore new disruptive but innovative horizons.
100 Most Innovative Large Companies of 2019
1. ABN AMRO Hackathons by ABN AMRO
The Innovative Side of the Company: Promoting hackathon, where people from all over the world come to work on a common challenge. The creativity of the teams participating in the event has brought to ABN AMRO's attention, innovative solutions about new payment methods implementing blockchain technology
Industry Focus: Financial Services
Company's HQ: Amsterdam, Netherlands
2. Accenture Technology Labs by Accenture
The Innovative Side of the Company: Accenture Labs support companies in keeping the pace with future trends and technologies. Through specific programmes, like Tech4Good, new advanced technologies are used to improve lives in developing countries and social issues
Industry Focus: Professional Services, Technology Services
Company's HQ: Dublin, Republic of Ireland
3. Accor Innovation by Accor Hotels
The Innovative Side of the Company: Accor innovation is a way to share ideas and creativity, sourcing from every single talent in the company. Putting the accent on human capital, Accor supports employees and customers to communicate ideas. At the same time, through a philosophy of open innovation, it enters in cooperation with start-ups and other partners, in order to grow and disrupt the market
Industry Focus: Hospitality
Company's HQ: Paris, France
4. Adobe Innovation by Adobe
The Innovative Side of the Company: Adobe's ecosystem builds innovation, consolidating a strong company's culture, where employees become part of the process of disruption with ideas and receive support for these ideas to be experimented and implemented
Industry Focus: Computer Software
Company's HQ: San Jose, California, United States
5. Aetna Innovation Labs by Aetna
The Innovative Side of the Company: Aetna Labs work on improving patient outcomes rapidly. Thanks to the usage data, Aetna Labs Team enables processes and best practices that have measurable value for both customers and patients
Industry Focus: Health Care
Company's HQ: Hartford, Connecticut, United States
6. Samara by Airbnb
The Innovative Side of the Company: Samara is Airbnb in-house innovation design studio, working on exploring new ways to expand the company's mission, through projects related to design, architecture, hardware and software engineering. The goal is to innovate the way people interact in particular spaces
Industry Focus: Hospitality, Online Marketplace
Company's HQ: San Francisco, California, United States
7. Lab126 by Amazon
The Innovative Side of the Company: Lab126 represents the inventive side of Amazon. The creative hub where new consumer electronics devices are thought and developed
Industry Focus: Online Shopping
Company's HQ: Seattle, Washington, United States
8. Innovation Centers by Apple
The Innovative Side of the Company: Through their company's culture and Innovation Centers, Apple supports developers to improve their skills and accelerate projects
Industry Focus: Computer Hardware, Computer Software, Consumer Electronics, Digital Distribution, Semiconductors, Fabless Silicon Design, Corporate Venture Capital
Company's HQ: Cupertino, California, United States
9. AT&T Labs by AT&T
The Innovative Side of the Company: AT&T Labs is the hub where scientists and engineers work to create the disruptive innovation that will lead to the future. Some examples include: accessibility to AI for all, Nanocubes technology, Omnichannel Analytics, etc.
Industry Focus: Telecommunications, Mass media
Company's HQ: Dallas, Texas, United States
10. AutoDesk Innovation Lab by AutoDesk
The Innovative Side of the Company: Innovation Lab is the place where AutoDesk "innovation DNA" methodology is implemented and put to service of R&D and customers. The project has as a main goal the one of developing innovative techniques that can be applied by all kinds of organisations
Industry Focus: Software
Company's HQ: San Rafael, California, United States
11. AVAYA Innovation Incubator by AVAYA
The Innovative Side of the Company: The Incubator has focused on mobile and AI-based ecosystem that supports businesses and startups.
Industry Focus: Technology
Company's HQ: Santa Clara, California, United States
12. AXA Labs, Kamet, AXA Strategic Ventures and AXA Partners & AXA Digital Partnerships by AXA
The Innovative Side of the Company: AXA has an ecosystem that entirely commits to innovation. Through a series of programmes and initiatives, the disruptive branch of AXA recognises, invests and builds solutions, along with partners and start-ups mainly operating in the insurance and asset management sectors
Industry Focus: Insurance and Asset Management
Company's HQ: Paris, France
13. BARCLAYS Accelerator by BARCLAYS
The Innovative Side of the Company: A fintech-focused programme from Barclays, to support progress and bring the business ahead. The duration of the Accelerator is of 13 weeks and includes different learning stages, like introduction, mentoring, investment and access to technical expertise
Industry Focus: Banking, Financial Services
Company's HQ: London, United Kingdom
14. Bayer Open Innovation by Bayer
The Innovative Side of the Company: Bayer Open Innovation proposes different options to enter in collaboration with the company. Among these: co-development, facilities and co-location, funding, mentoring and coaching, partnering and licensing and challenge-solving programmes. These ways to open to innovation are addressed to large companies, small-medium businesses, start-ups, Universities, research organisations and creative individual as well
Industry Focus: Pharmaceuticals, Chemicals, Life Science
Company's HQ: Leverkusen, Germany
15. BBVA-Labs by BBVA
The Innovative Side of the Company: BBVA-Labs is BBVA's "Crowd-Inventing" hub, where people, departments, countries and technologies meet. BBVA Labs promote the idea that working in a cross-country and cross-departmental and cross-technology capacity, the outcomes are always better
Industry Focus: Financial Services
Company's HQ: Bilbao, Spain
16. Capital One Labs by Capital One
The Innovative Side of the Company: With a startup culture, Capital One Labs is the place where corporate experimentation happens. Part of the company, the Labs operate as an incubator and accelerator
Industry Focus: Financial Services
Company's HQ: McLean, Virginia, United States
17. Fuse by Cardinal Health
The Innovative Side of the Company: Merging innovation and technology with health care. The innovative process is made up of three main ideas: the design thinking process, the lean innovation and the agile development, to finally spot real needs
Industry Focus: Pharmaceutical
Company's HQ: Dublin, Ohio, United States
18. Carlsberg Foundation by Carlsberg
The Innovative Side of the Company: Giving space to world's leading science and innovation entrepreneurs, to talk about cooperation between science, business and society
Industry Focus: Beverages
Company's HQ: Copenhagen, Denmark
19. Ciena Innovation Lab by Ciena
The Innovative Side of the Company: The Lab that provides Ciena's technology hands-on experience
Industry Focus: Telecommunications Equipment
Company's HQ: Hanover, Maryland, United States
20. Cisco Investments by Cisco
The Innovative Side of the Company: Cisco Investments' mission is to empower the next generation of disruptive start-ups. Through more than 40 investment professionals, located all over the world, Cisco identifies and invests in new ideas to shape the future
Industry Focus: Networking Hardware
Company's HQ: San Jose, California, United States
21. Citi Innovation Lab by Citi Group
The Innovative Side of the Company: Accelerating the competitive advantage, through delivery of advanced technologies, data science, visualisation, and high performance computing
Industry Focus: Banking, Financial Services
Company's HQ: New York City, New York, United States
22. Coca Cola-GTRC by Coca Cola
The Innovative Side of the Company: A strategic collaboration with Georgia Tech, implemented through technology transfer
Industry Focus: Beverages
Company's HQ: Atlanta, Georgia, United States
23. Coloplast Care by Coloplast
The Innovative Side of the Company: A free support program takes user-driven innovation to a new health care level by offering proven information and personalized support
Industry Focus: Health Care
Company's HQ: Humlebæk, Denmark
24. COMCAST Labs by COMCAST
The Innovative Side of the Company: Teams of engineers working together to test new revolutionary technologies, integrating these in new products and finally changing the way people are entertained
Industry Focus: Telecommunications, Mass Media
Company's HQ: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
25. Innovation Lab by Commonwealth Bank
The Innovative Side of the Company: The place where visitors can interact with real-time data and trends, brainstorm solutions and work along with the Commonwealth Bank specialised teams
Industry Focus: Banking, Financial Services
Company's HQ: Darling Harbour, Sydney, Australia
26. Digital Innovation Lab by CVS Health
The Innovative Side of the Company: The Lab focuses on developing digital services, offering accessible and integrated personal pharmacy and health experience
Industry Focus: Retail, Health Care
Company's HQ: Woonsocket, Rhode Island, United States
27. InsightStudio by Deloitte
The Innovative Side of the Company: Deloitte's incubator that transforms data and analytics in tangible results. In fact, InsightStudio is the place where different fields professionals are given access to analytics, are helped to go through them and, thanks to an extremely cooperative environment, succeed in generating rapid results
Industry Focus: Professional Services
Company's HQ: London, United Kingdom
28. DELTA Hangar by DELTA
The Innovative Side of the Company: A hub for problem-solvers, experts and thinkers that want to improve travel experience and cooperate to build solutions
Industry Focus: Airline
Company's HQ: Atlanta, Georgia, United States
29. NEXTLAW Labs by Dentons
The Innovative Side of the Company: The first legal technology venture created by a law firm, the Labs work as an incubator for new ideas and for delivering legal services via new technological advanced solutions
Industry Focus: Law Firm
Company's HQ: Beijing, China
30. Innovation Centers by DuPont
The Innovative Side of the Company: The Innovation Centers are designed for customers and partners to collaborate with DuPont to deliver innovative solutions when the problems become challenging and require a collaboration with DuPont engineers and scientists
Industry Focus: Conglomerate
Company's HQ: Wilmington, Delaware, United States
31. Blue Lab by EDF Energy
The Innovative Side of the Company: Working with start-ups, colleagues, students and innovators, to accelerate the process of conversion to a more sustainable offer
Industry Focus: Energy
Company's HQ: London, United Kingdom
32. The Helix Innovation Center by EMERSON
The Innovative Side of the Company: 40,000-square-foot facility where researchers, academia and industry professionals are free to apply a disruptive problem-solving approach. The center is equipped with real-world simulation facilities for fast prototyping
Industry Focus: Electrical Equipment
Company's HQ: Ferguson, Missouri, United States
33. ERICSSON Garage Challenge by ERICSSON
The Innovative Side of the Company: An incubation programme for start-ups working within IOT-related data security challenges
Industry Focus: Telecommunications Equipment, Networking Equipment
Company's HQ: Kista, Stockholm, Sweden
34. Facebook Reality Labs by Facebook
The Innovative Side of the Company: The goal at Facebook Reality Labs is to join a world-expert team of researchers, developers, and technicians to build up the future of connecting virtual and increased reality
Industry Focus: Internet
Company's HQ: Menlo Park, California, United States
35. Fidelity Labs by Fidelity Investments
The Innovative Side of the Company: The Labs investigate new technologies, rapidly working for bringing them to customers and partners. The process comprises three steps, namely: scan, try and scale, in which the best ideas are analyzed and developed
Industry Focus: Financial Services
Company's HQ: Boston, Massachusetts
36. Ford Research and Innovation Center Palo Alto by Ford
The Innovative Side of the Company: Ford Research and Innovation Center Palo Alto has brought together automotive and computer technology in the era of a digital revolution. The Teams operating at the Innovation Center help primarily to accelerate what is called the Ford Mobility initiative, focusing on topics as: customer experience and big data, autonomous vehicles, connectivity, etc.
Industry Focus: Automotive
Company's HQ: Dearborn, Michigan, United States
37. Innovation by Gartner
The Innovative Side of the Company: Through advisory and research services, mainly related to information technology, Gartner provides firms, government agencies and investment companies with models, events and programmes to analyse and evaluate their activities and position in the market, and foster their innovative side
Industry Focus: Research
Company's HQ: Stamford, Connecticut, United States
38. GE Ventures by General Electric
The Innovative Side of the Company: GE Ventures partners and invests in best ideas within software, health care, energy and advanced manufactury
Industry Focus: Conglomerate
Company's HQ: Boston, Massachusetts, United States
39. GP Innovation Institution by Georgia Pacific
The Innovative Side of the Company: A strict collaboration with customers and partners to find innovative and sustainable supply chain solutions
Industry Focus: Pulp and Paper
Company's HQ: Augusta, Georgia, United States
40. Grundfos Innovation by Grundfos
The Innovative Side of the Company: The idea of innovation at Grundfos is rooted and brought to life through different initiatives. Among these, the cooperation with start-ups, to welcome new disruptive ideas to Grundfos' corporate environment, and the opening, a few years ago, of an Innovation Center in the Silicon Valley to experiment and adopt new technologies
Industry Focus: Mechanical Engineering
Company's HQ: Bjerringbro, Denmark
41. Google Ventures by Google
The Innovative Side of the Company: GV facilitates start-ups with access to the world's best technology and talent, and support in fields like: investments, marketing, life science, partnerships, operations, design, engineering, talent
Industry Focus: Venture Capital
Company's HQ: Mountain View, California, United States
42. BlackLocus by Home Depot
The Innovative Side of the Company: Where software and analytics are used to optimize operations and outputs level
Industry Focus: Retail
Company's HQ: Atlanta Store Support Center, Cobb County, Georgia, United States
43. HP The Garage and HP Labs by HP
The Innovative Side of the Company: Both HP Garage and Labs help to identify new projects and cooperate with partners for accelerating ideas and build new innovative technologies
Industry Focus: Computer Hardware, Computer Software, IT Services, IT Consulting
Company's HQ: Palo Alto, California, United States
44. Wireless X Labs by HUAWEI
The Innovative Side of the Company: Labs discover and generate new applications that make a valid contribution to the wireless telecommunication platform while researching wireless software.
Industry Focus: Telecommunication Equipment, Networking Equipment
Company's HQ: Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
45. IBM Client Innovation Centres and IBM Innovation Space by IBM
The Innovative Side of the Company: IBM Incubator and Innovation Space give employees, customers and start-ups the chance and the right tools to innovate and disrupt the market
Industry Focus: Cloud Computing, Cognitive Computing
Company's HQ: Armonk, New York, United States
46. Space10 by IKEA
The Innovative Side of the Company: Space10's goal is to design a better and more sustainable way of living. The numerous Labs include, for example, exploration of: ways technology can more naturally interact with human behaviour; new ways of living in the era of housing problems in many urban realities; healthy alternatives to industrial production of food and innovative methods for building spaces in the digital era
Industry Focus: Retail
Company's HQ: Leiden, Netherlands
47. Intel Research Centers and Intel Capital by Intel
The Innovative Side of the Company: Research and investments on ready-for-growth companies, to bring them to the next level
Industry Focus: Semiconductors
Company's HQ: Santa Clara, California, United States
48. IPG Lab by IPG
The Innovative Side of the Company: IPG Lab investigates and identifies innovation that will be part of the media landscape change
Industry Focus: Advertising Agency
Company's HQ: New York City, New York, United States
49. ISS Corporate Garage Lab by ISS
The Innovative Side of the Company: ISS Corporate Garage Lab is an autonomous start-up lab where partners and visitors shape innovative service ideas to bring to the public
Industry Focus: Facility Services
Company's HQ: Copenhagen, Denmark
50. Johnson&Johnson Innovation by Johnson&Johnson
The Innovative Side of the Company: Facilitating ways to implement partnerships in all sectors, through a flexible business model
Industry Focus: Medical Equipment, Pharmaceuticals
Company's HQ: New Brunswick, New Jersey, United States
51. Financial Solutions Labs by JPMorgan Chase&Co.
The Innovative Side of the Company: Founded by JPMorgan Chase&Co., the Financial Solutions Labs aims to improve financial health in the US, investing in innovative solutions
Industry Focus: Banking, Financial Services
Company's HQ: New York City, New York, United States
52. KOHL'S Technology and Innovation by KOHL'S
The Innovative Side of the Company: Teams involved in exploring and reinventing the way shopping is done, through technology and innovations
Industry Focus: Retail
Company's HQ: Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin United States
53. LEO Innovation Lab by LEOPharma
The Innovative Side of the Company: The Lab focuses on patient needs. The smaller, more agile unit of LEO Pharma, does not develop medical treatments, and finds instead faster everyday life solutions to help people with a skin condition
Industry Focus: Pharmaceuticals
Company's HQ: Ballerup, Copenhagen, Denmark
54.Hack4AgilePeople by Leroy Merlin
The Innovative Side of the Company: Hack4AgilePeople is a human resources focused hackathon organised by the Italian branch of Leroy Merlin, to compare, create and innovate in a co-working, challenging environment
Industry Focus: Retail
Company's HQ: Lezennes, Lille, France
55. Skunk Works by Lockheed Martin
The Innovative Side of the Company: Lockheed Martin Skunk Works is committed to quickly develop disruptive solutions through small empowered teams
Industry Focus: Advanced Technologies, Information Security, Aerospace, Defense
Company's HQ: Bethesda, Maryland, United States
56. Lowe's Innovation Labs by Lowe's
The Innovative Side of the Company: Building a long-term competitive advantage through proactivity and application of disruptive technologies. Lowe's Labs implement story-telling techniques, VR and AR visualisation methods, and use robotics, on-demand manufacturing processes and collider programmes in order to find the right paths to innovation
Industry Focus: Retail
Company's HQ: Mooresville, North Carolina, United States
57. Lululemon Lab by Lululemon
The Innovative Side of the Company: Concept spaces where in-house designers create collections that react to the needs of the city they are in and where they can learn from one another
Industry Focus: Retail
Company's HQ: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
58. M Beta by Marriott
The Innovative Side of the Company: With the opening of M Beta, an Hotel Innovation Incubator, Marriott has transformed the traditional hotel experience, replacing it with a completely new digital experience
Industry Focus: Hospitality
Company's HQ: Bethesda, Maryland, United States
59. MasterCard Labs by MasterCard
The Innovative Side of the Company: MasterCard Labs want to be pioneer in accelerating payment processes and facilitate the transfer to a society that is cashless
Industry Focus: Financial Services
Company's HQ: New York City, New York, United States
60. McKinsey Digital Labs by McKinsey
The Innovative Side of the Company: Providing new disruptives services for organisations that want to get the most out of the digital experience
Industry Focus: Management Consulting
Company's HQ: New York City, New York, United States
61. McLaren Applied Technologies by McLaren
The Innovative Side of the Company: Partnerships with pioneers and visionaries to disrupt the future, using data management, predictive analytics, simulation and design
Industry Focus: Automotive
Company's HQ: Woking, United Kingdom
62. Lumenlab by MetLife
The Innovative Side of the Company: Incubator for ideas and innovative processes that disrupt the role of insurance. LumenLab focuses on businesses like retirement, health and wealth, using data and new technologies to improve people's lives
Industry Focus: Financial Services
Company's HQ: New York City, New York, United States
63. MICs by Microsoft
The Innovative Side of the Company: Collaborating with local entities, Microsoft Innovation Centers (MICs) allow early-stage companies to accelerate and grow. Besides, special projects are put in place for helping and providing tools to developing regions.
Industry Focus: IT, Consumer Electronics
Company's HQ: Redmond, Washington, United States
64. OSS by NETFLIX
The Innovative Side of the Company: Netflix focus is on open source contributors, working on projects that improve the internet television network offer
Industry Focus: Entertainment
Company's HQ: Los Gatos, California, United States
65. Nike Fuel Lab by Nike
The Innovative Side of the Company: A cooperation among partners, for "fueling" Nike offer with new technologies and designs
Industry Focus: Apparel, Accessories, Sports Equipment
Company's HQ: Washington County, Oregon, United States
66. Bell Labs by NOKIA
The Innovative Side of the Company: A place where brilliant minds can contribute to disrupt the future. A team of consultants mediates the process that brings data insights to real business life, while through different programs like Le Garage and the Bell Labs prize, new ideas are sourced
Industry Focus: Telecommunications equipment. Networking Equipment, Consumer Electronics
Company's HQ: Espoo, Finland
67. Nordea Ventures by Nordea
The Innovative Side of the Company: Investing in fintech start-up companies is the way Nordea has decided to walk the way to innovation. Nordea Ventures has been established exactly for creating a new kind of banking services, that use digital technologies to disrupt the fast-changing industry
Industry Focus: Financial Services
Company's HQ: Stockholm, Sweden
68. Nordstrom Innovation Lab by Nordstrom
The Innovative Side of the Company: An innovation lab that mines data gathered from the main social platforms, in order to shape a personalised customer experience when shopping
Industry Focus: Retail
Company's HQ: Seattle, Washington, United States
68. Innovation in Action by Novo Nordisk
The Innovative Side of the Company: The Innovation in Action events allow graduate students to partake in case studies competitions, where participants, with different backgrounds, have the chance to develop solutions and provide ideas for innovation, then submitted to Novo Nordisk's jury
Industry Focus: Pharmaceuticals, Health Care
Company's HQ: Bagsværd, Denmark
69. Oracle Labs by Oracle
The Innovative Side of the Company: innovative approaches applied to uncertain and risky challenging projects. The main fields of application of this research at the Labs are: exploratory research, directed research, consulting, product incubation and heterogeneous computing
Industry Focus: Enterprise Software, Cloud Computing
Company's HQ: Redwood Shores, Redwood City, California, United States
70. Panasonic Innovation Center by Panasonic
The Innovative Side of the Company: Panasonic Innovation Center is the incubator for the automative In-Vehicle Infotainment technologies of the future
Industry Focus: Electronics, Semiconductors, Home Appliances
Company's HQ: Kadoma, Osaka, Japan
71. Thinkabit Lab, Qualcomm Labs and Qualcomm Ventures by Qualcomm
The Innovative Side of the Company: Qualcomm hubs, where students have the chance to discover their own unique talent in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) and start-ups are given the tools they need to drive innovation
Industry Focus: Telecommunications, Semiconductors
Company's HQ: San Diego, California, United States
72. Open Innovation Labs by Red Hat
The Innovative Side of the Company: Red Hat Open Innovation Labs give the chance to developers to learn how to build apps following Red Hat standards. The environment supports teams' creative skills and allow them to experiment and build prototypes in a fast way
Industry Focus: Financial Services, Telecommunications, Government and Public Sector, Health Care and Life Science
Company's HQ: Raleigh, North Carolina, United States
73. SAMSUNG Strategy and Innovation Center and SAMSUNG Venture Investment by SAMSUNG
The Innovative Side of the Company: Samsung Strategy and Innovation Center (SSIC) helps the brightest entrepreneurs to shape their visions, offering tools and support, while Samsung Venture provides investments to businesses identified as the keys to innovation
Industry Focus: Conglomerate
Company's HQ: Seocho District, Seoul, South Korea
74. Startup Focus by SAP
The Innovative Side of the Company: A SAP programme looking for start-ups developing Big Data, predictive or real-time analytics solutions
Industry Focus: Enterprise Software
Company's HQ: Walldorf, Germany
75. Innovation Lab by SEPHORA
The Innovative Side of the Company: A Lab by Sephora, where new shopping possibilities are tested to enhance the customers experience
Industry Focus: Consumer Goods
Company's HQ: Paris, France
76.SoftBank Innovation Program by SoftBank
The Innovative Side of the Company: Finding the right partnership with entrepreneurs that can create sustainable disruptive businesses
Industry Focus: Venture Capital
Company's HQ: New York City, New York, United States
77. STAPLES Labs by STAPLES
The Innovative Side of the Company: Staples Labs explore all possibilities for creating new e-commerce and digital platforms, in-store technologies and innovative ways to use data engineering
Industry Focus: Retail
Company's HQ: Framingham, Massachusetts, United States
78. FoodShare by Starbucks
The Innovative Side of the Company: Listed among the 2019's most innovative companies, Starbucks has created, for example, the FoodShare programme in order to lead the fight against hunger
Industry Focus: Coffee Shop
Company's HQ: Seattle, Washington, United States
79. Research Labs by Symantec
The Innovative Side of the Company: Symantec Research Labs (SRL) investigate the newest technologies, then commercialised through Symantec's. The researches are conducted openly, in cooperation with Universities and other relevant partners, and mainly involve the following areas: privacy, cloud, insider threat detection, IoT, predictive analytics, identity, artificial intelligence, big data, machine learning, malware, autonomous response, trust, key management and network protocols
Industry Focus: Computer Software
Company's HQ: Mountain View, California, United States
80. Syngenta Ventures by Syngenta
The Innovative Side of the Company: Support for companies that share Syngenta vision of producing more with less resources
Industry Focus: Agrobusiness, Chemicals
Company's HQ: Basel, Switzerland
81. TARGET Technology Innovation Center by TARGET
The Innovative Side of the Company: Target Technology Innovation Center helps the company to stay up-to-date in the fields of technology and development
Industry Focus: Retail
Company's HQ: Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States
82. TATA InnoVerse Program by TATA
The Innovative Side of the Company: Tata InnoVerse Program brings together academia, scientists and innovators to find innovative solutions to challenging issues
Industry Focus: Conglomerate
Company's HQ: Bombay House, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
83. Startup Accelerator by Techstars
The Innovative Side of the Company: The main goal of the company is built around the concept of investment in innovation. As a start-ups accelerator, Techstars enhances new-companies' growth, enrolling them in mentorship programmes and giving them the possibility to partner with bigger companies
Industry Focus: Accelerator for IoT, FinTech, Media, AI, Health Care, Retail, Automotive
Company's HQ: Boulder, Colorado, United States
84. Open Future by Telefonica
The Innovative Side of the Company: Telefonica, through Open Future, gives tech-digital startups the possibility to develop ideas, accelerate and grow through investments
Industry Focus: Telecommunications
Company's HQ: Madrid, Spain
85. TESCO Labs by TESCO
The Innovative Side of the Company: Hackathons, cooperations with external partners and start-ups, all in order to build a company's culture based on innovation
Industry Focus: Retail
Company's HQ: Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, United Kingdom
86. TESLA Disruption Strategy by TESLA
The Innovative Side of the Company: TESLA continuously focuses on research, test and development of innovative solutions for accelerating the adoption of renewables. Not only in the automotive sector
Industry Focus: Automotive, Energy Storage
Company's HQ: Palo Alto, California, United States
87. The New York Times Labs by The New York Times
The Innovative Side of the Company: A hub for R&D, where teams look at trends and technologies that can have an impact and drive change in the media industry. Different projects are currently run, from Mirror, an interactice platform for exploring contents on a mirror home, to Delta, analysing real-time readers' activity
Industry Focus: Mass Media
Company's HQ: New York City, New York, United States
88. Innovation at The Walt Disney Company by The Walt Disney Company
The Innovative Side of the Company: The Walt Disney Company remains one of the most innovative companies ever existed. Accelerator Programs, collaborations with students and experts have been boosting the company higher and higher in the list of corporations that know how to disrupt
Industry Focus: Mass Media Entertainment
Company's HQ: Burbank, California, United States
89. Innovation Garage by thyssenkrupp
The Innovative Side of the Company: Employees form different business units and covering different roles in the company, work in teams for finding new ideas and better innovative solutions for the customers. The atmosphere and the tools provided are the ones of a garage, overpassing the traditional development process
Industry Focus: Conglomerate
Company's HQ: Essen, Germany
90. ATG by UBER
The Innovative Side of the Company: The Advanced Technologies Group consists of engineering teams, testing self-driving solutions, mapping and developing vehicle safety technologies
Industry Focus: Transportation, Delivery (Commerce)
Company's HQ: San Francisco, California, United States
91. Unilever Foundry by Unilever
The Innovative Side of the Company: At Unilever Foundry, the mission focus is on finding new models for sustainable growth and tech-partners that want to innovate. Not only research, but also Mentorship programs and Open Innovation collaborations for start-ups
Industry Focus: Consumer Goods
Company's HQ: London, United Kingdom
92. Virgin Startup by Virgin
The Innovative Side of the Company: An accelerator for start-ups, to scale and grow. Virgin Start-Up offers a wide range of programs for growing companies, from mentoring to professional support for branding, marketing, business planning and import/export, from courses for improving IT skills to loan for start-ups
Industry Focus: Conglomerate
Company's HQ: London, United Kingdom
93. One Market Center by VISA
The Innovative Side of the Company: One Market Center supports teams of experts that can help a growing company to reach the next level. The center gives the possibility to join different types of learning activities about commerce advancement in authentication, digital, security and IoT, sessions for prototyping and experimenting, using Visa platforms
Industry Focus: Financial Services
Company's HQ: Foster City, California, United States
94. Innovation Park by VODAFONE
The Innovative Side of the Company: At Innovation Park, Vodafone's experts foster innovation and development of networking technologies. This means the involvement of more than 100 suppliers and at least 1000 projects per year
Industry Focus: Telecommunications
Company's HQ: London, United Kingdom
95. Volkswagen Automotive Innovation Lab by Volkswagen
The Innovative Side of the Company: The facility gives space to teams with different backgrounds to work on projects related to human centered mobility advancements
Industry Focus: Automotive
Company's HQ: Wolfsburg, Germany
96. Walmart Labs by Walmart
The Innovative Side of the Company: At Walmart Labs, teams of experts support innovative disruptors, to change the way people shop. An open source technology and the aim of shaping online and in-store shopping as a seamless experience, are pillars of the Labs' mission
Industry Focus: Retail
Company's HQ: Bentonville, Arkansas, United States
97. Wells Fargo Labs by Wells Fargo
The Innovative Side of the Company: Teams of Project Managers, Strategists and Developers that cooperate with customers to improve banking solutions
Industry Focus: Banking, Financial Services
Company's HQ: San Francisco, California, United States
98. PARC by Xerox
The Innovative Side of the Company: Subsidiary of Xerox, PARC is an incubator and accelerator for technology platforms, enabling new businesses to break through
Industry Focus: IT
Company's HQ: Norwalk, Connecticut, United States
99. YMVSV by YAMAHA
The Innovative Side of the Company: Yamaha Motor Ventures & Laboratory Silicon Valley (YMVSV) invests in other companies or grants them access to Yamaha's facilities and technologies, all in order to find innovative ways to bring to life the latest automotive development
Industry Focus: Automotive, IoT, Robotics, Industrial Automation, Life Sciences, Precision Agriculture, Unmanned Systems
Company's HQ: Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan
100. Partnering with Ørsted by Ørsted
The Innovative Side of the Company: The purpose of managing a company that runs entirely on green energy, has brought Ørsted to find new ways to indentify and build green sustainable solutions. These go from partnership models to cooperation with Universities, to hiring process of talents that know well how to apply innovation
Industry Focus: Electricity Generation
Company's HQ: Fredericia, Denmark
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Conclusion
Corporate-startup partnerships will become the difference between companies leading their respective fields and those that will cease to be relevant industry leaders in 10+ years. Without the ability to explore new technology, uncover new revenue streams, and become first to market with new concepts it will become increasingly difficult to maintain a firm grasp on any market.
Many large enterprise organizations are starting to understanding this.
Often the hardest part of digital transformation is the overcoming internal procedures and bureaucratic obstacles. These are processes that are meant to reduce waste and maintain the elements of checks and balances. At what cost do these processes become nothing more than a “process” that deters new ideas from being tested?
Is the answer to embracing risky projects - that could finally bring innovation?
Are new ideas considered to be a danger by many big companies?
The presence of disruptors helps the market to stay competitive, it builds new challenges for the biggest actors involved to remain up to date with innovation and new technologies, but it’s not yet enough.
The corporations listed are only some of the hundreds of companies worldwide that “get it.” They have chosen to open up to real innovation and face risk with optimism; not avoidance.
[Related Article - 50 Examples of Corporations that Failed to Innovate]
If you're working inside of one of these innovation labs or you're a corporation that is dying to innovate, Valuer would love to work with you! Visit or website and get in touch!
