Corporate venturing managers have the rule of thumb that only approximately one out of
ten investments really pay of in financial measures. These low odds for success, of course,
put extremely high expectations to the profit yielded from the few investments that become
successful. In other words, the few successful investments carry the costs of many more
investment decisions. It would obviously be attractive to improve the ability to "pick the
winners". In this paper, we develop a conceptual framework for understanding how firms`
involvement in establishing and nurturing the venture base (the idea creation phase)
enhances their ability to select ventures.
Keywords: Corporate venturing, venture base, selection, network.