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Key people at Rainmaking Innovation.
Rainmaking operates as a global innovation firm, specializing in venture building, startup collaboration, and corporate transformation. It delivers tailored solutions including opportunity mapping, corporate venture building, and internal innovation programs. This approach directly generates tangible business results by addressing specific industry and organizational challenges for its partners.
Established in 2007 by entrepreneurs Jordan Schlipf, Kasper Vardrup, and Morten Kristensen, Rainmaking was founded on the insight that entrepreneurial experience effectively solves complex business problems. The founders leveraged their backgrounds to build impactful ventures and integrate innovative methodologies within large corporations.
Rainmaking partners with leading corporations and government entities, fostering collaboration between established enterprises and promising startups. Its mission is to unleash entrepreneurship to tackle significant global challenges. The firm continuously builds and scales technology companies through strategic partnerships and innovation initiatives.
Key people at Rainmaking Innovation.
Rainmaking Innovation is a global corporate innovation and venture development firm founded in 2007, specializing in partnering with leading corporations to co-create new businesses, map growth opportunities, build ventures, run startup pilots, and foster internal innovation.[1][2][3] Its mission centers on delivering tangible, measurable results through shared risks and rewards, often via results-based pricing tied to KPIs rather than vanity metrics, serving Fortune 500 clients across industries like insurance, mining, infrastructure, and retail.[1][3] The firm emphasizes a multidisciplinary team of over 200 entrepreneurs, strategists, engineers, designers, data scientists, and investors from 35 nationalities, operating 10 studios across four continents, with a track record including successful pilots, ventures generating €50 million in forecasted revenue, and $14M in cost savings for partners like Engie and IKEA.[1][2][3]
Rainmaking's investment philosophy treats clients as true partners, aligning incentives to de-risk venture building while accelerating outcomes faster than corporations can alone, without upfront fees by co-investing from its fund.[3][4] Key sectors span IT & software, services, insurance, finance, mining, cement, and infrastructure, impacting the startup ecosystem through its Startupbootcamp accelerator, venture studio model, and workspaces like Talent Garden Rainmaking that support founders and corporate innovation teams.[2][3][4]
Rainmaking Innovation was founded in 2007 in Copenhagen, Denmark, by a small group of entrepreneurs, including key figures like Founder & CEO Karsten Kølbek, Founder & CFO Morten Kristensen, and Founder & Partner Kasper Vardrup, who leveraged their experiences to build impactful businesses.[2][3][4] The idea emerged from their entrepreneurial backgrounds, evolving from starting as venture builders to addressing corporate innovation challenges; shortly after founding, they launched Startupbootcamp, one of the world's most successful accelerators, marking a pivotal moment in scaling support for other founders.[3]
Over 18 years, the firm's focus shifted from pure entrepreneurship to corporate partnerships, expanding globally with 10 studios (e.g., Cairo, Doha, Singapore, Sydney, Taipei, and a moved HQ from Copenhagen to London), growing to 200+ employees, and incorporating venture studio operations in Western Europe and North America.[1][2][4][6] Early traction came from bootstrapping (no external funding) and building a B2B model that now represents 40 markets, with milestones like Bain & Company's 2023 acquisition of Rainmaking APAC.[1][2]
Rainmaking stands out in the corporate innovation space through these key strengths:
Rainmaking rides the corporate venturing wave, enabling incumbents to navigate rapid market uncertainty by building future-proof models outside core businesses amid digital transformation and sustainability pressures.[1][3] Timing is ideal post-2023 APAC acquisition by Bain & Company, aligning with rising demand for efficient innovation as corporations face trillion-dollar revenue thresholds yet struggle internally.[1][4]
Market forces like AI-driven disruption, ESG mandates, and startup-corporate pilots favor Rainmaking's de-risked, co-creation model, which boosts success rates and ROI over in-house efforts.[4] It influences the ecosystem by accelerating startups via pilots and accelerators, bridging big tech/resources with entrepreneurs, and powering cross-industry innovation (e.g., sustainable solutions for IKEA, mining for FLSmidth), thus democratizing venture building globally.[1][2][3]
Rainmaking is poised for expansion through deeper Bain integration and scaling its venture studio in high-growth regions like APAC and MENA, potentially launching more co-invested unicorns amid AI and climate tech booms.[1][4] Trends like corporate-startup symbiosis and results-only pricing will shape its path, evolving its influence from builder to ecosystem orchestrator as Fortune 500s double down on external innovation.
This positions Rainmaking as a growth engine, turning corporate challenges into scalable ventures that redefine industries.
