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Imagine a powerhouse of innovation where startups are born, nurtured, and accelerated to success. Venture studios, like Small Great Ventures, represent a new paradigm in entrepreneurship, offering a blend of resources, expertise, and support to fuel advances in systems, technology, and solutions. The emergence of venture studios is on the rise as a novel approach to startup creation.
In this 2-part series, we’ll share everything there is to know from a behind-the-scenes POV.
First things first, let’s clarify what we mean by a venture studio. Is it like an accelerator? A VC (venture capitalist)? A business incubator?
While a venture studio is similar to the “usual suspects” within the entrepreneurial ecosystem, it boasts a distinctive model.
A venture studio, also known as a startup studio, is an organization that routinely creates startups, typically from the ground up. It generates and tests ideas, invests money, allocates resources and studio teams among various projects, and attracts co-founder entrepreneurs to create startups. Simply put, think of a venture studio as a company that builds other companies. That’s so meta! Are we right?
Traditional startups typically originate with a founder and an idea or business concept that takes various approaches to launch the concept into a company. This could include:
Max Pog does a great job outlining the typical structure of a venture studio in this article.
Disruption, innovation, and scalability are key to startups' success beyond their venture studio roots.
Ever heard of a little company called Dollar Shave Club? Launched out of the startup studio, Science Inc., when this startup first came on the scene, its model was unheard of. Going up against the “big players” in the market was practically unfathomable. Five relatively short years after its founding, Dollar Shave Club was acquired by Unilever for a whopping $1B.
Other notable companies spawned from venture studios include widely known names such as Giphy, Yelp, Hims, Medium, and Liquid Death (planning to IPO in 2024 only seven years after founding).
While relatively new to the business world, believe it or not, venture studios have been around for close to three decades. Here’s a brief history lesson on the evolution of venture studios:
Today, more than 500 venture studios worldwide launch a total average of 200 businesses each year. Venture studios have raised more than $21B in funding to support these businesses. That’s the small but mighty stuff we live for!
SGV always seeks motivated, bright, and audacious founders to join the studio on our next small great venture. Think we should meet? Send us a note and let’s see how we can build together.
We give great advice on building things, partnerships, and creating impact.
When we get around to writing it down, we’ll (maybe) send it out in a dressed-up email.
If you’d like to skim or dive deep into these insights - sign up! We’d love to have you.
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