Bernardita Araya-Kleinsteuber, CMPC Ventures Manager, says that CMPC Ventures thinks of itself as an innovation fund, rather than just corporate venture capital. “Our mission,” she explains, “is to explore innovations that have a connection to our purpose which is accelerating and developing new technologies and products connected to fibre and forests.”
According to Araya-Kleinsteuber, CMPC Ventures saw enormous potential in Strong By Form as “disruptive technology” but suggested bringing in Trailmaker to help the startup set priorities after the investment. CEO of Strong By Form, Andres Mitnik, says that his company has a vision, but agrees there was a lack of clarity about what to prioritise and at what pace following the funding round. “CMPC wanted to do a deep dive after the investment to turn our vision into actionable, more concrete items and it made a lot of sense to me and my two co-founders,” he says.
According to Mitnik, the decision-making process with Trailmaker brought forward essential internal conversions that had not been prioritised. “The work with Trailmaker led to a huge shift. There were quite different understandings in the company about what our value proposition was exactly, and we had not had these conversations before the process with Trailmaker.”
Mitnik explains that the result was a convergence of views in the leadership team, which he says has strengthened ever since. “Having a third party lead us helped smooth out the discussions and we reached a common view. It was a bit like couple’s therapy.”
For Araya-Kleinsteuber, Strong By Form was an “interesting case” because she knew they would benefit from Trailmaker’s expertise. She explains: “It is always valuable for a company of our size to get a very honest and neutral view from a third party. This was a good case for CMPC Ventures and it has been a learning journey for us as we seek to grow internationally alongside our portfolio clients. We have grown together.”
