The Venture Studio Forum

Chief Content Officer

9point8 Collective

9point8 supports early stage investors, accelerators, and venture studios through services and technology. We focus on entity design, strategy, talent development, and diligence.

Partner

Venture Studio Associates

CogBias AI

Bad questions lead to bad answers which lead to bad decisions. 

Break the cycle.

Ask better questions and see truths hidden in the answers.

CogBias AI is a platform for industry specific application development to detect Cognitive Bias in product development, hiring, legal, healthcare, and marketing research.

Co-Founder - CPO

Savvy Tinkers Studios

We partner with experienced professionals to build AI powered B2B SaaS Startups. Building first portfolio companies now. 

We partner with:
✔️ Experienced professionals with at least 10 years of experience
✔️ A problem they want to solve where they have 3 years of relevant experience

NCR Corporation

Formed the New Ventures Group, a startup studio inspired group focused on delivering early innovations to deployed products. Supported by the CEO, COO, CTO, and business unit GMs on the heals of the success of the launch of the first internal accelerator program.

✔️ Proposed and led NCR’s first accelerator program with the full support of the CEO and ELT. Delivered $90M in revenue from the first cohort with multiple teams taking products to market.
✔️ Launched the New Ventures Group operating as a hybrid startup studio responsible for transitioning multiple concepts to product owners, supported M&A evaluations, and market analysis.
✔️ Provided opportunity and framework to establish partnership to deliver strategic inroads to retail opportunities and new revenue streams worth over $2B.

Innovation Principal

Led innovation efforts across retail, financial, and hospitality lines of businesses. Secured executive support for partnerships and responsible for over 20% of patent filings for FY 2019.

✔️ Proposed an M&A to the CEO, GM of Retail, and Head of M&A backed with a business case that resulted in a partnership agreement with a potential revenue of $80M ARR in year 1. 
✔️ Found a $9B cost savings opportunity in the North American banking industry. Secured over 10 patents, built a business case, and secured executive support to pursue opportunity.
✔️ Trained internal teams on Flashpoint customer discovery techniques to leverage behavioral economics techniques to minimize cognitive bias in customer discovery

Innovation Leader

Providing internal product teams innovation and new product development support during NCR’s transition to an ‘as-a Service’ business model. 

✔️ Joined a team of intrapreneurs participating in the Flashpoint accelerator program, interviewing 175 customers and identifying 10 opportunities worth a deeper look.
✔️ Built the business case for three opportunities in finance and the convenience fuel retail industries, each with a potential of generating more than $100MM in SaaS revenue.
✔️ Led cross-functional hardware and software development teams to architect, prototype, and develop solutions leveraging computer vision, data analysis, deep learning, AI, and mobile development.

Innovation Engineer

Savvy Tinker Consulting

We worked with industry organizations and major investor groups to generate investing, company design frameworks, training, and though leadership content.

✔️ Distilled best practices across Private Equity, Venture Capital, Search Funds, Startup Studios, Accelerators, and Startups for new venture creation processes.
✔️ Adapted a quantitative venture investing approach for the strategic design of new company creation,  product development roadmaps, and focused customer discovery.
✔️ Created an evaluation framework for metal additive manufacturing use cased based by examples and data. 
✔️ Published core market and capabilities analysis on metal additive manufacturing achieving recognition from industry experts.
✔️ Presented findings at LiveWorx in 2018.

Independent Consultant

Flashpoint at Georgia Tech

Sole experienced founder on corporate team participating in the Flashpoint startup accelerator program the focused on adapting and applying behavioral economics and cognitive bias insights to improve the quality of customer discovery and user research in startups and new product development efforts.

✔️ Interviewed 175 customers using behavioral and cognitive bias limiting approaches. 
✔️ Mapped internal and external customer ecosystems to understand factors that shaped customer behavior and decisions.

Intrapreneur, Corporate Innovation Team @ Cohort 8

SPIN Collective Partnership

SPIN Collective was a collection of serial founders offering innovation and special projects consulting.

✔️ Delivered a strategy for $50MM annual cost savings for an agricultural client
✔️ Identified innovation special project opportunities with projected revenues of $500M ARR and $150M ARR respectively.
✔️ Identified a strategic gap in private equity operations strategy to deliver an additional 1-2x multiple through a targeted product innovation strategy based on work from McKinsey.
✔️ Developed financial model for growth value creation based on strategies found in private equity, search funds, venture studios, startup factories, and startup studios.

Innovation Consultant

MatterFab

MatterFab focused on designing industrial metal 3d printers targeting production and industry applications in the injection molding, aerospace, medical, and automotive industries.

✔️ Designed & built multiple prototypes capable of printing +98.5% dense solid stainless steel parts optimizing over process 200 variables.
✔️ Secured $2.5M in LOIs in under 8 weeks from mid-sized businesses and large enterprises.
✔️ Secured strategic partnerships & funded R&D agreements with Fortune 50 company.

Founder

Venture Studio Architect - I help you design, launch, and grow your company creation studio.

I’m an entrepreneurial strategy and innovation leader with 20+ years of experience designing and scaling ventures, partnerships, and corporate initiatives that have generated over $500M in strategic value.

As Chief Content Officer at The Venture Studio Forum, I lead the world’s largest global venture studio association—now 400+ members representing $48B+ in value creation across 675 companies and 8 unicorns. I drive content, standards, and community that define the venture studio asset class and position it for institutional adoption.

Previously, I launched NCR’s first internal accelerator—generating $90M from its first cohort—and secured 27+ patents across AI, fintech, and computer vision. I’ve built and scaled startups from zero to funding and strategic partnerships with Fortune 50s, and developed investment and diligence frameworks that institutional investors now use to allocate capital into the studio model.

I work with investors, founders, and innovation leaders to design, launch, and scale venture studios tailored to their goals, environments, and constraints. I bring unmatched breadth of exposure across 500+ global studios to create models that align incentives, avoid fatal design flaws, and drive long-term success.

Let’s connect if you're designing a studio, evaluating the model, or scouting strategic talent to take innovation, venture, or corporate development goals further.

Matthew Burris

Most university innovation hubs run on hope. 
Not operations.

I've walked through dozens of beautiful innovation buildings. Glass walls, coworking spaces, demo labs. Millions invested in the physical space.

But here's what I see behind the scenes: programs that teach and advise, but don't actually build.

The difference shows up in the math.

A typical accelerator provides 1-2 hours per week of support to each portfolio company. For 12 weeks.

A venture studio? 20-80 hours per week. For 12+ months.

That's not mentorship. That's co-creation.

Accelerators and incubators are dependent on entrepreneurs stepping up and delivering. They hope the founders figure it out.

But hope isn't a strategy. It's a prayer.

Studios take an active role in building the products, forming the teams, and de-risking the ventures themselves.

The building is beautiful. But without an operational engine doing the actual work of company creation, you're not placing bets, you are hoping that someone else follows through to give you a win.

If you're working in university innovation: what's the biggest gap you've seen between innovation infrastructure and the operational capacity to actually build companies and deliver innovation outcomes?

Reply or DM me—I'll send you our From Lab to Market report.

Elevating the Venture Studio Ecosystem | $500M+ Strategic Impact | M&A, Innovation & AI | Trusted by 500+ Studios

Building a new studio?
Your thesis is weaker than you think.
Here is why and how to fix it.

I pulled the public theses from top U.S. venture studios. Real names, real websites.

Read these and ask yourself: Would this make YOU write a check?

"We partner with incredible entrepreneurs to create, launch, and scale next generation enterprise software companies."

"We work with world-class entrepreneurs to turn the best ideas into market-defining, venture-funded companies with rapid customer adoption."

"We bring ideas, capital, and talent together, partnering with co-founders to build the best ideas into great companies."

"We believe fiercely that human potential can be realized through technology so long as we place what is human at the core."

"Creates ground-breaking companies whose products and services change the way people think, live and work."

All from top U.S. studios. All generic. Soft. Uninspired. Junk.

Here's what emerging managers need to understand: Public examples of theses are terrible examples to learn from.

Most studio theses read like mission statements. Inspiring, but relatively useless in practice.

A real thesis is not branding. It's a decision system.

It should tell you which ideas you pursue, which founders you recruit, which investors you attract, and which capabilities you build internally. If it can't do that, it's not a thesis. It's a paragraph.

The best theses are brutally clear about:

The domain where you believe disproportionate value can be created
The studio's unique role in company formation
Why you win (the proof, not the hope)
The constraints you willingly accept

Example: "We build vertical SaaS for overlooked service industries leveraging our GP's experience building three category leaders generating $750M in annual sales through our deep industry access, GTM expertise, and first customer relationships."

That's 32 words. Clear domain. Named wedge. Specific proof. No fluff.

A studio with a crisp thesis moves faster because it moves intentionally. You know exactly what you're building and why you're the team to build it.

A studio without one drifts, slowly, and then all at once. Every decision becomes a debate. Every pitch becomes improv.

Question for emerging managers: Does your thesis pass the 50-word test? Would an LP remember it after one read?

If you want help crafting a thesis that becomes the backbone of your studio, you can sign up for Studio Foundations today. A 4-week program launching in January 2026 for studios that want clarity, coherence, and investor-ready positioning.

Request access to the waitlist and I'll DM you the link.

I help innovation leaders build venture studios | Director, Research & Data @ Venture Studio Forum | Partner, Head of Insights @ 9point8 Collective | Keynote Speaker | Trusted by 500+ Studios

Imagine a world with Venture Studio Data. Today, that world begins.

The Venture Studio Forum is launching the most comprehensive venture studio survey ever undertaken — aiming for 500+ studios to participate. Built on the Venture Studio Index frameworks and conducted in collaboration with MIT, Harvard, and Stanford researchers on both survey design and data analysis, this survey combines operational data with classification standards to enable rigorous performance analysis across diverse studio strategies.

This survey delivers meaningful insights across:

Researchers: A structured foundation to classify and analyze studios by strategy type.

LPs: Performance benchmarks critical for informed capital allocation.

Operators: Peer data to evaluate and sharpen your operational approach.

Covering legal structures, funding models, governance, geography, and performance metrics, participation grants access to the aggregate findings report, inclusion in the VSF database, and contributes to white papers shaping the asset class.

Studios have until the end of Q1 2026 to participate. The survey takes about one hour.

If you're a studio founder or operator, reserve an hour today to make your voice heard. If not, tag a studio founder who should join. The strength of this dataset depends on full spectrum participation.

Survey launches today, December 2nd: https://lnkd.in/e9uf4gtk

Learn more about the frameworks: 
Venture Studio Index Whitepaper: https://lnkd.in/erZjJvgH
Venture Studio Definition: https://lnkd.in/eyJC7mAG
Cost Structure Model: https://lnkd.in/eQwjCZVp


My asks?

Tag a studio founder or studio that needs to participate.

Share this with your network - DM or Repost.

We’d appreciate your help spreading the word to grow this important resource!

#VentureStudios #Innovation #Startups #VentureStudioResearch

Global Venture Studio Survey Launches. Venture Studio Forum, MIT, Harvard, and Stanford Researchers in collaboration.

Standards for Venture Studios are here.
Full whitepaper, open standards, everything.
Yes, this is a repeat. I goofed.
Why? Article & Newsletter look the same except for one button...
But I digress.

The Venture Studio Index whitepaper, an open standard for venture studios is available now. 

Expanded and updated based on investor feedback.
The official whitepaper on the Venture Studio Index and its release as an open standard for venture studios is here.

Since its formation, the Venture Studio Forum has had a mission to elevate and advance the asset class of venture studios.

Part of that mission is creating and managing standards for the asset class.

The Venture Studio Index is the first major release in support of this mission.

The VSI is designed to make it much easier for investors to understand, compare, and invest in venture studios. The VSI leverages frameworks, terminology, and expectations that are already familiar to investors. 

The new frameworks, such as the Venture Studio Cost Structure Model, build upon decades of investor knowledge and finance practice to reduce confusion and focus attention on how studios add value to the companies they build.

And embedding our definition of venture studios as a core aspect of how studios are evaluated, by drawing attention to the three core roles all venture studios must play as entrepreneur, operator, and investor in every company they build. 

This is just the first step. 
Join us in advancing the asset class. 
Join the Venture Studio Forum today.

View newsletter: Venture Studio Perspective

The venture studio ecosystem has reached a pivotal milestone with the release of the Venture Studio Index (VSI) as a comprehensive open standard for s

Open article: The Venture Studio Index Whitepaper: Establishing the Open Standard Foundation for an Emerging Asset Class by Matthew Burris • 12 min read

The Venture Studio Index Whitepaper: Establishing the Open Standard Foundation for an Emerging Asset Class

Corporate Venture Capital doesn’t go far enough  
but Corporate Venture Studios might be the solution  

Corporate development teams have long had two key levers: 

They can buy (M&A) 
OR 
They can partner (Corporate Venture Capital).

But there’s a third move many overlook: the build function.

That’s where venture studios come in.

When buying isn’t the answer and there’s no clear partner to invest in,
but the opportunity is strategically important… a venture studio fills the gap.

It allows corporate development to take action on what doesn’t yet exist in-market.

With a venture studio, the corporation can build it themselves, driven by strategy, owned internally, and guided by market need.

It fits neatly between M&A and venture investing.

More importantly, it expands the strategic toolkit of corporate development itself.

Why does this work so well?

Because corporate development already has alignment with the internal strategy. 

They have access to budget. And they know what strategic bets need to be made.

That makes them the ideal home for a venture studio.

It’s not about replacing M&A or venture; it’s about completing the playbook.

With a strong buy, partner, and now build function, Corporate Venture Studios unlock new levels of flexibility and scale.

P.S. Follow for more venture studio insights

Why CVC doesn’t go far enough.pdf

Thinking about starting a venture studio?

There are a few ways you can structure the capital. And each has its own trade-offs:

1. Raise capital into a holding company.

2. Raise money as a traditional venture fund.

3. Raise in to a dual-entity model.

4. Raise inside portfolio companies

5. No capital raise, just use profitable cash flow

Each model has its place.

Your access to capital, network, and timing will help determine the right one.

If you want to know more about their pros and cons, be sure to check the carousel below.

P.S. Follow for more Venture Studio insights

Capital structure options.pdf

Venture Studios are on the rise

And more and more investors, entrepreneurs,
and top operators are looking into them

One reason being the success
that this model is experiencing

Speaking of which…

Here are 6 Venture Studio success stories
(And the valuation of their companies)

P.S. I’ll be sharing case studies on each of these studios and their startups

In case of interest:
follow me at Matthew Burris

matterfab

savvy-tinkers-studios

li_at

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Talks about #startups, #venturestudio, #startupstudios, #venturecapital, and #productmanagement

I help innovation leaders build venture studios | Senior Director, Research & Data @ Venture Studio Forum | Partner, Head of Insights @ 9point8 Collective | Keynote Speaker | Trusted by 500+ Studios

6 Venture Studio Success Stories.pdf

Shuping D.

6 Common venture studio design mistakes

1. Incorporating Fund Too Soon
2. Picking the Wrong Follow-on Capital
3. Picking the Wrong Founder Archetype
4. Raising Capital Too Early
5. Designing Something Too Fancy
6. Pitching the Model Instead of Yourself

For more in depth breakdown, check the carousel below

The more focused you are early, the better your odds.

P.S. Follow for more venture studio insights

6 Common Mistakes Venture Studios Make Too Early.pdf

The Founder Studio vs. Co-Founder Studio

Here’s a simple breakdown:

1. Founder Studio Model:

- The studio ideates, validates, and sometimes builds the product before partnering

- The incoming founder is may be more of an operator or growth-stage exec

- Equity is shaped by how much groundwork the studio has already done

- The studio holds more control having put more work in up front

2. Co-Founder Studio Model:

- The studio and entrepreneur partner early, near idea stage

- Both sides collaborate on ideation, validation, and building from day one

- Equity is usually more balanced from the start

- Decision rights are more evenly shared up front

Matching the stage of the venture to the type of founder you need is where long-term success starts.

P.S. Follow for more venture studio insights

The Founder Studio vs Co-Founder Studio.pdf

Most studios don't fail because of weak ideas. 
They fail because governance doesn't fit the mission.

Mark Simoncelli, former CRO of Mach49, captures the fundamental problem facing corporate venture studios: "You cannot ask a team to act like entrepreneurs and then govern them like a corporate project. The parent company often keeps too much control or pushes for short term results, which removes the flexibility a studio needs to succeed."

The GCV 2025 report confirms internal stakeholder management ranks among the most frequent challenges within corporate studios.

Here's the Corporate Control Paradox in action:
Your procurement process takes 90-120 days for vendor evaluation. 
Your venture needs to deploy tools in 1-7 days to test and pivot.

The opportunity cost of that delay exceeds procurement savings by 10-50x.

This pattern repeats across every operational area:
HR: 60-90 day hiring cycles vs. 14-21 day offer-to-hire needs
Legal: Months waiting for approval while competitors capture market position
Decision authority: Velocity reduced 5-10x with multi-layer approvals

Only 20% of corporate studios offer startup equity. This single constraint significantly limits talent attraction—the most common challenge among corporate studios.

Simoncelli describes the solution as operating at "two speeds":
"One moves quickly for venture building, guided by milestones and market validation. The other checks in periodically for strategic fit. The boundaries should be clear from the start, and then the team needs freedom to execute within them."

The balance Simoncelli emphasizes:
"The strongest ventures work with their parent company, not despite it. When ventures have access to brand, customers, and talent combined with autonomy, they gain real advantages. But it is a balance. Too much integration leads to incremental ideas. Too much distance and the venture loses momentum."

This week's newsletter breaks down the complete governance framework—from structural separation to board composition to delegation frameworks that enable speed while maintaining strategic alignment.

Read the full article below.

How Corporate Venture Studios Navigate the Tension Between Speed and Control Corporate venture studios face a fundamental challenge that determines su

Open article: The Governance Framework for Corporate Venture Studios: Balancing Autonomy with Strategic Alignment by Matthew Burris • 18 min read

The Governance Framework for Corporate Venture Studios: Balancing Autonomy with Strategic Alignment

The four customers framework conflict for University led Venture studios

There are four core customers in any studio:

1. Investors
2. Studio staff and GPs
3. Entrepreneurs
4. Follow-on capital

But when a university launches a studio, they often end up playing the role of:

✅ Investor → by funding the initial studio build  
✅ Operator → by staffing and running the studio themselves  
✅ Entrepreneur → by pushing university-owned IP into the pipeline

That’s three out of four roles, each with different needs, incentives, and success metrics.

And if all those roles are optimized for the university?

You risk misaligned comp for GPs, unattractive deal terms for founders, and a cap table that puts off follow-on investors.

In short, unintentionally sabotaging the studio’s success.

Anyone designing a Venture Studio inside a university needs to be mindful of the conflicts that arise when one party fills multiple customer roles.

It’s not about avoiding involvement, it’s about designing responsibly.

P.S. Follow for more venture studio insights

The 4 customers framework(universities).pdf

The 4 Customer Framework Conflict For Corporate Led Venture Studios

Corporate Studios Self Sabotage.
They are their own customer.
And don’t see what kills them.

Corporate venture studios are complex by design.

The Four Customer Framework becomes critical when one of those customers plays multiple roles, especially the corporate parent.

In a typical corporate venture studio, the company might:

✅ Be the sole funder  
✅ Provide or hire the staff and GPs  
✅ Choose the entrepreneurs or pull them from internal teams  
✅ Reabsorb portfolio companies instead of spinning them out

That means the corporation is acting as the studio investor, operator, entrepreneur, and follow on capital source, all at once.

This destroys the essential tension between customer roles.

For example:

- Staff compensation is aligned with parent company metrics, not venture success.  
- Entrepreneurs may not receive equity in what they're building.  
- Portfolio companies aren't structured to survive outside the parent if they need to.

Even worse, if follow-on capital isn’t part of the design, the portfolio isn’t built for market reality. 

So if a company needs to spin out, not in, you’re scrambling to redesign it.

That’s when a venture studio is set up to fail, even before launch.

P.S. Follow for more venture studio insights

The 4 CF Conflict For Corporate Venture Studios.pdf

What is an acceptable ownership stake that a studio takes?

That depends entirely on context.

Venture studios don't operate under one model.

Equity structures can’t be one-size-fits-all, too many variables shape what’s fair, sustainable, and aligned.

Trying to anchor to a single percentage without knowing the studio structure or sector dynamics leads to broken outcomes.

You need to look at all four “customers” of a deal:

1. Studio investors want venture-scale returns for earlier, riskier capital.
2. The studio team needs comp that reflects deep, hands-on work building from scratch.
3. Entrepreneurs should receive a mix (salary, equity, benefits) that beats their alternative paths.
4. Follow-on capital requires cap tables and governance that fit their mandates.

If you underserve one, the deal structure breaks down.

There are also 8 pressure points that shift the right outcome:

1-Target Follow-On Capital Source
2-Entrepreneur Profile
3-Studio Investor Expectations
4-Industry Norms
5-Capital Intensity
6-Regional Ecosystem
7-Studio’s Founder Role
8-Studio Role Execution

Is the studio just an accelerator?
Are they hiring the team and validating the idea?
Buying a distressed asset?

Each case justifies a different equity model.

Want the full worksheet and article? Drop a comment on your challenge with venture studio deal structures, and I'll send it to you.

What is an acceptable ownership stake that a studio takes.pdf

University IP doesn't die in the valley of death. 
It dies from lack of a champion.

Here's the uncomfortable truth about why most university innovation stalls:
The academic researcher—brilliant, world-class—often doesn't care about commercial impact.

Publications? Yes. Citations? Absolutely. Tenure track? Critical.
Building a company? Career risk.

And when they do care, they're often championing innovations with no market potential. Because they're subject matter experts, not market experts.

But here's the structural problem underneath it all:
No single entity at the university has the mandate—and the capability—to go end-to-end. To identify the right IP, build the company, recruit the team, secure the capital, and set it up for success outside the university walls.

Tech transfer gets close. But they stop at licensing. Someone else has to build it.

That's the gap a university venture studio fills. 
End-to-end accountability. 
End-to-end execution.
Not handoffs. Ownership.

What's the biggest handoff gap you've seen in university commercialization—either at your institution or others you've observed?

Drop a comment or DM me—I'll share our report on how universities are building single-accountability systems.

Corporate Venture Studio vs. Corporate Venture Capital 

A surprising stat:

Around a third of corporations with Corporate Venture Capital also have a Venture Studio.

Both serve different purposes, and they're distinct operationally, strategically, and financially.

Corporate VC is about gaining strategic access to an external startup, one that the corporation might one day acquire, partner with, or monitor closely.

A Venture Studio works differently, Instead of buying in, you’re building from the ground up. 

Usually in a category where the corporation already has deep industry knowledge.

Two powerful tools, but useful for very different parts of the corporate growth strategy.

For more in depth comparison, check the carousel below

P.S. Follow for more venture studio insights

CVS vs. CVC.pdf

FIEMG

Early stage venture capital focused on indtechs

Venture Capital 

Genesis Startups

Startup Studio

A Ponte

Open Innovation 

Me Escuta

big_bets

Investor

Ctrl Saúde

Helping clinics save on related medical products

Co-Founder

eMotion Studios

Chief Corporate Venture Officer

Cubo.network

Head Corporate Innovation

Hub Minas Digital

Open Innovation program sponsored by the government

Imeri Capital

Private Equity Specialist

For over 17 years, I have been building startups, leading open innovation projects and developing the brazilian innovation ecosystem. I have a passion for creating positive impact through technology and entrepreneurship. 

As venture capital advisor at FIEMG, I am on a mission to create the largest industry innovation hub in LATAM. 

As the Founder of Me Escuta, I want to give hearing back to millions of people who suffer from hearing loss.

I also founded Genesis Startups, a corporate venture studio that helps companies launch and scale their startups. 

I also host a podcast named named A Ponte to help corporates and startups connect and generate results.

I have solid skills in open innovation, venture building and corporate venture capital.

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