Venture Capital-as-a-Service
An external investment team builds and operates a corporate venture programme on your behalf, inside a mandate you write. This page is the long answer.
The 6S framework
Six steps, operated in sequence, from raising the vehicle to reporting on it.
Seeking Capital
Raise and steward capital from LPs, corporates and co-investors, then keep them informed well enough that the next vehicle is an easier conversation than the last.
2 outcomes
- Committed capital with an agreed mandate.
- A reporting cadence LPs can plan around.
What VCaaS is
Venture Capital-as-a-Service for corporates and institutions in InsurTech, IndustryTech and ImpactTech: from thesis to exit, operated by an investment team, not a consultancy.
Why the model exists
Because the two conventional options fail in opposite directions. An internal team gives you control and takes eighteen months to hire, then depends on one executive's tenure. A commitment to an external fund is cheap in attention and buys almost no strategic value: you see the reporting, not the pipeline.
Hiring takes 12 to 18 months
By the time an internal team is assembled and has learned the market, the strategic question that justified it has moved.
The programme depends on one person
Internal CVC units are rarely closed over a bad investment. They close because the sponsoring executive moves on and nobody left has a stake in defending a portfolio that will not produce a result for four years.
Nothing reaches the business units
A portfolio company that never gets in front of a business unit is a financial holding with a strategic label. That gap is the most common reason venture stops being funded.
The delivery model
Five modules, each with deliverables, a timeline, and a clear line on who owns what.
| Module | Deliverables | Who holds the pen | Timeline |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vehicle design and structuringWhat the programme is for, which markets it touches, and what a win looks like, written down before any capital moves. Then the vehicle, the investment committee and the decision rights that carry it. |
| Mandalore drafts and operates; the corporate approves and governs. The thesis is the mandate, and everything downstream is measured against it. | 4 to 8 weeks for the thesis, 6 to 12 for the vehicle |
| Sourcing engineProprietary deal flow in the target sectors, filtered against the thesis rather than by novelty. The corporate relationship is itself a sourcing channel. |
| Mandalore sources. Nobody at the corporate has to become a full-time investor. | Continuous once the thesis is signed |
| Investment executionDiligence, terms and closing, executed by the team that will operate the stake. Diligence is run by people who have operated in the category. |
| Mandalore recommends. The committee decides. The corporate keeps the strategic veto without staffing an investment team to exercise it. | |
| Portfolio operationsWhat happens after the wire: board work, commercial introductions into the corporate, follow-on structuring, and the pilots that turn an investment into a business relationship. |
| Mandalore runs the operating rhythm. The corporate supplies the commercial door, which is the asset a founder actually wanted. | For the life of the holding |
| Reporting and exitConsistent measurement of pipeline and portfolio, in a format an investment committee and a CSR report can both use, and the exit path prepared with the shareholders rather than improvised. |
| Mandalore produces it. The corporate presents it internally, which is the moment a venture programme is usually won or lost. | Quarterly, from first close |
Who it is for
Three audiences, three different conversations.
For corporates
Run a venture programme under your governance, operated end to end by a team that has done it before.
For LPs
Back thematic funds in insurance, impact and industry, managed by operators rather than allocators.
For founders
Reach the corporate perimeter that turns a pilot into a contract, and the corridor that opens Southeast Asia.
Common questions
Tell us what you want to build. We'll tell you how we'd operate it.
A first call is 30 minutes: your objective, the constraints you are working under, and whether an operated venture platform is the right instrument at all.