What are Innovation Labs for?

Oct 5, 2015 By Huy Nguyen Trieu in Curated Articles Tags: Banks, Efinancialcareers, Fintech, Innovation, Innovation labs, startups

Start-ups are increasingly turning to large banks – the very institutions that fintech is supposed to be disrupting – for mentorship and money.

Source: news.efinancialcareers.com

Very interesting overview of innovation labs by Simon Mortlock with a few quotes from yours truly.

I will not try to paraphrase the article but a few observations come to mind:

– Innovation labs are extremely useful to large organisations, as a way to interact with startups, get new ideas and source potential suppliers/investments. However, it seems that innovation labs are not that common yet (vs. corporate venture funds for example)
– For startups, I believe that units like innovation labs are a must. I previously wrote that working with a large company can be a fatal experience for a startup and innovation labs are certainly a valuable entry point into the large organisations.
– Finally, if anyone doubted the interest of Fintech for bankers, then have a look at eFinancialCareers. It is the largest careers site for finance professionals, and Fintech articles are now commonplace – whereas they were much scarcer even a few months ago.

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