I went to many tech conferences. I've seen my share of keynotes. I enjoyed my share of coffee hallway and wine served in clear plastic cups. But some of my most favorite things to do at conferences does not revolve around high-profile features "cornerstone" as the expansive showroom or the planned opening session; I love the side shows where you can often find the most interesting nuggets of innovation and information.
Citrix Synergy conference this week was no exception. In addition to all the announcements, the evolution of the brain-overload industry made by Citrix on the main stage (and seriously, there were many), there were some revolutionary innovation happens in the hallway in accelerator Sessions Citrix Startup. I had the chance to be not only a part of the excitement, but I also had the chance to chat with the leader of the Citrix Startup Accelerator program and VP of Citrix Labs, Martin Duursma, find out more about the evolution of this program and its strategic importance for the company.
program creation, shared Martin, came there about 1 ½ years ago when Citrix began serious efforts to cultivate in-house innovation through workshops, groups and sessions of brain- cross-functional brains. And although they were well received and rewarding for the participants, the rate of change ushered in by the proliferation of "cloud" -had degenerated so rapidly that it was difficult to stand. That's when the idea came to the company, as Martin refers to it to bring the "outside and inside."
The company realized that there was a deep internal expertise on product development, marketing and business that could be of value to the numbers growing startups in the field of technology. And, conversely, innovation was happening at the hands of these new innovative entrepreneurs opened a new creative thinking which has brought with it new ideas and innovation more inspired to many areas of the business.
Because of this early development stage of innovation, the program team decided to focus on companies in the early stages of their start-up projects. The objective was to identify highly innovative companies in need of seed funding and to leverage the symbiotic relationship between Citrix and commissioning to drive them to the Series A venture capital.
The commissioning program to receive start-up funding was Primadesk in March 2011. Since then, the Citrix Accelerator has invested in 11 companies, two of which went to "graduate" from the program is in receiving a series of venture capital or acquisition, as Nukona which was acquired by Symantec a couple of months ago.
Now, in addition to visiting the two Moscone and Javitz more times than I care to count, I have also seen my share of startup programs or capital investment over the years. In particular, in my old job, I worked with Intel Capital on a variety of investments around social media companies. However what struck me as so unique Citrix Startup Accelerator on the program's focus is not only on the financial viability or success of commissioning, but on symbiotic and collaborative nature of innovation. Citrix is looking for companies that have a strategic function to proliferate innovation in the fields of activity where Citrix focuses. It is therefore less about cash rebate, but more on an open approach to innovation. Citrix made an investment in an ecosystem, which is why the investment amounts are not very large.
So back to Citrix Synergy. At the end of day five new companies were invited to make their pitches to a panel of 12 judges disguingished Citrix, other startups in Silicon Valley successfully, VentureBeat, and many venture capital firms. The winner was to receive an investment of $ 100K. Surprisingly there was a link between two companies: ScriptRock and AppEnsure. And instead of letting one go home empty handed at home, Citrix announced it would invest $ 100K in each of promising companies. For more on this story see the review article on the winners.
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