Revenues and independence from external capital:
Revenue often is a key incentive for an early-stage company. As big corporates can invest considerable amounts of money for products, corporates can free start-ups from the need to seek outside investments.
Corporates can also have a long-term interest, which may stabilize a start-up and help it to reach break-even or even profits very early. Such an approach allows the start-up to achieve sustainable growth, independently from scarce venture capital.

Success story for future sales:
Large corporate customers substantially enhance the reputation of start-ups and serve as reference cases for future sales. As corporate decision-makers look for references before engaging in a collaboration, this also triggers a network effect. In this context, the transformation of the sales process from an innovation pitch into reference selling may become a key success factor for a start-up.

Scalable customer base:
Large corporates can be an ideal target customer as they have enough people, budget and opportunity to scale.
This is helpful for start-ups and providers of emerging technologies that are looking for their first customers.

Riskless internationalization:
Working with corporate headquarters offers the possibility to expand into other countries by partnering with the corporate’s local subsidiaries. Moreover, large user bases may also help start-ups to refine and optimize their products.

Attractive retail sales channel:
The infrastructure of an established corporate, including its existing clients, allows faster scaling of the start-up business model than the start-up could achieve on its own.

Access to proprietary assets:
Partnering with a corporate can enable a start-up to exploit underutilized corporate assets such as data that would otherwise not be accessible, and create new business opportunities.

Market knowledge and mentoring:
An established business player can help start-ups enter the market with its resources. Start-ups can also tap into the knowledge and long-term experience of the corporate in the form of mentoring.