CVC Is the Ultimate Platform... If Done Right

For too long, platform and portfolio development leaders in CVC have been left out of the programming and conversation. This year, we decided it was time to give this affinity group the stage it deserves.

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Hosted at Adobe’s San Francisco office on September 11, 2025, the event gathered more than 100 of the people who make corporate venture work—the builders who drive value beyond the check, connect startups to Fortune 500s, and prove that strategic value doesn’t end with the term sheet.

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The summit was part of our inaugural CVC Week. We hosted more than 1,000 corporates, founders, and investors across 20+ events in San Francisco for the first-ever weeklong program dedicated to CVC. In addition to this platform unlock, the Counter Club community came together for various sector-focused gatherings, founder x CVC matchmaking and social events.

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If you are a corporate investor or builder and not already a part of Counter Club, you can request to create an account here: https://counterclub.vc/signup

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Why Counter Club and the CVC Platform?

We intentionally focus on providing our founders with access to enterprise customers, partners and capital.

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That is the essence of the Counter Club Flywheel—a network built to unlock CVC’s strategic advantage at scale for our founders pre and post investment. And that’s exactly what the Platform Summit explored: how today’s leading corporate venture funds operationalize that flywheel inside their own organizations.

A long time coming...

This summit stands on the shoulders of those who started the conversation.

Back in 2020, well before my time at Counterpart, we hosted a small platform roundtable in our conference room with Sapphire Ventures, Comcast Ventures, and Lerer Hippeau. Last year, as we began experimenting with a multi-day format around Counter VI, Jennifer Carter and Cici Lemke Ceralde from McKesson Ventures stepped up to host a pre-conference meetup for platform and portfolio development leaders. And earlier this year, I had the chance to attend the first CVC Track at the VC Platform Summit in Miami, led by Lisa Costello and Sarah Farino, which helped inspire this summit.

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Now, for a few lessons and case studies by those creating the post-investment value and making their flywheel spin:

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Turning Bespoke Support into Scalable Programs

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When Marty Collins rejoined Microsoft, each portfolio manager at M12 had their own onboarding process. Her mission was to turn those one-off efforts into something repeatable. The result was Launchpad, a cohort-based onboarding program that standardizes sessions on GTM, Azure Marketplace, PR, and Microsoft for Startups. Everything is recorded and reusable, creating consistency across M12’s 140 portfolio companies.

“Rather than telling a story 20 times, we told it once and recorded it. That’s scalable.”

Marty also introduced M12’s first internal Demo Day to showcase startups across Microsoft’s 225,000 employees—turning internal visibility into commercial traction. The next frontier: measuring how many startups become “co-sell ready,” turning portfolio enablement into a true performance metric.

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Redefining Wins Through Measurable Customer Outcomes

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Ran Kurup defines success not by anecdotes, but by measurable wins like qualified leads, proof-of-concepts, and revenue generated. Through Customer Connect events and an Embedded Expert Program placing Intel engineers and marketers inside startups, Intel Capital has driven over $200M in portfolio revenue since 2022.

“If we get the company a POC—paid or not—that’s a win. We’re not selling their product; they are.”
^{-Ran Kurup, Intel Capital}

Ran's approach starts with quick, visible results to earn founder trust. Intel’s platform acts as a “force multiplier,” converting introductions into outcomes and relationships into real market impact.

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Rewarding Collaboration from Experimentation to Maturity

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Jennifer Carter has seen McKesson Ventures evolve from a “newbie” experiment to a mature CVC platform embedded within corporate strategy. Early years focused on credibility and awareness; today, McKesson’s platform influences roadmaps and defines success metrics before programs even launch.

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Carter also created an internal recognition program for employees who help portfolio companies succeed—complete with public acknowledgment and small financial bonuses. It’s not about the money, she said, but the signal:

“Someone took time out of their day job to help a startup, and their leadership gets to see that.”
^{-Jennifer Carter, McKesson Ventures}

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Blueprints in Action: Case Studies on Platform Driving Value

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Building an Internal Ecosystem of Intrapreneurs

At Adobe Ventures, Hannah Steinhardt is building bridges between founders and Adobe’s own innovators. She recently launched an internal advisory board of 15 “intrapreneurs”—former founders and creative technologists who mentor startups and guide them through Adobe’s ecosystem.

“They’re the people who know how to get things done inside Adobe—how to pilot something, who to talk to, which door to knock on first.”
^{-Hannah Steinhardt, Adobe Ventures}

This advisory network complements Adobe’s marquee events like MAX and Summit, turning exposure into engagement. For Steinhardt, platform work isn’t just connecting dots—it’s expanding the canvas, bringing internal and external innovation closer together.

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Designing a Platform Around Customer Pain Points

Lisa Costello reframed Prologis Ventures’ platform by starting with customer needs, not founder asks. Through Prologis Next—an invite-only network of global supply chain leaders—startups listen directly to executives describe their challenges, then co-develop solutions.

“We flipped the script. Instead of thinking about what our founders need from us, we thought about what Prologis customers need from us.”
_{-Lisa Costello, Prologis Ventures}

This approach led one robotics company to a potential $90M commercial opportunity. Costello emphasized that success requires internal buy-in: “We tried funding a pilot ourselves, but it failed. Without the business unit’s money, there wasn’t commitment.” For her, true platform value comes when customers, corporates, and startups all win together.

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The Art of Portfolio Management: Project Manager, Diplomat, Deal-Maker

At Boeing Ventures, Lindsay O’Connell Woolman’s job is part operations, part diplomacy. Her team manages pilots inside one of the world’s most complex organizations—navigating procurement, engineering, and executive buy-in. Her case study with cybersecurity startup Galvanic showed how hands-on engagement pays off: she personally coordinated a live proof-of-concept inside a production facility, using her team's own budget to cut through delays.

“We’re not just going to sit on the bench and hope these companies do well. We get in the trenches with them and help them deliver."
^{-Lindsay O’Connell Woolman, Boeing Ventures}

The pilot led to significant follow-on contracts and created internal advocates who carried the solution further. For Woolman, portfolio development blends project management, sales enablement, and diplomacy—the skill set that turns investment into impact.

Closing Reflections

Across every session, one truth resonated: CVC is the ultimate platform... if done right. From Microsoft’s scalable onboarding to Boeing’s boots-on-the-ground delivery, each story showed how platform teams transform capital into capability.

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We're looking forward to run it back and grow Platform day at CVC Week 2026.

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Counter Club members can access the full slides, notes and playbooks from all CVC Week sessions at counterclub.vc.
If you're a corporate investor or builder, you can request to join the community here: https://counterclub.vc/signup