“1 plus 1 equals 1 . . . it really does.”

Changing the lens on alternatives and competitors.

In late 2022, a transformative venture capital group acquired a majority stake in a deep tech innovation enterprise. The innovative tool allowed for the building of complex AI pipelines from a large set of predetermined models and datasets. Leadership understood technology, and knew this acquisition was only an entry point. In early 2024, they acquired two additional organizations - both with complimentary feature sets. Aligning technology and planning for product optimization was the easy part, however, the team struggled with narrowing the focus. Three companies, three leadership teams, three cultures and many disparate functional processes.

“We’re small but, a pretty respected VC firm and this wasn’t our first rodeo. But in the struggles of integration, our teams kept losing time and more importantly commercial goodwill. We deployed our transition teams and trusted the leaders to know their businesses but it just wasn’t working, we had gaps.”

Selected for our understand of technology, the team at Yard understood the high-impact pressure points and relied on the platform organization’s technology for potential solutions. The ideal solution required collaboration in the most unlikely places. Ultimately, the Yard team helped leadership e-R.U.P.T. from the stalemate. We penciled a strategy and path forward that respected the “rapid” pace of the newly combined organization, while leaning into “unconventional” ways of partnering and co-opetition. With the re-imagining of conventional “parameters” and we helped them un-”tangle” from what they thought were the rules.

“We would sit in meetings discussing . . . relevant and valid points, our Yard partner would sit patiently and listen, then she would say just a sentence or two, and our entire lens was changed. The transformation to our business was truly strategic . . . she eliminated drop-down menus from our thinking.”