Sapphire Venture’s CIO Innovation Index

Your Blueprint for Successful Startup Engagement

Learn how Global 2000 CIOs are engaging startups

Sapphire Ventures is an active collaborator with the global CIO and startup communities. Based on that work, we often hear CIOs saying they do not have a way to accurately benchmark their organization’s digital readiness to adopt new, emerging technologies.

The CIO Innovation Index is a ground-breaking quantitative study of the best practices CIOs are using to identify and engage  emerging technologies and venture-backed startups. Key findings from the CIO Innovation Index include:

  • Startups are a clear fixture in IT landscapes, consuming a median 10% of IT budgets – growing to 15% over the next 12 months.

  • Corporations recognize the need for a different engagement process for startups, with 70% of CIOs dedicating staff for startup engagement, and 80% have a defined onboarding process for startups.

  • Startup maturity matters, with over half of CIOs stating a preference for later-stage startups (Series D in funding and later) – and only 7% citing a preference for earlier-stage (Series A-B) startups.

  • POCs are a standard part of startup evaluation at large enterprises. However, 61% of CIOs stated that less than a third of their POCs convert into productive implementations and purchase of the startup’s technology.

Read more of the findings as well as the best practices identified in Sapphire’s Innovation Interaction Framework by completing the form to download the full report.