How Big Companies Make Innovation Acquiring Startups

Globalization, Digitalization and Internet of Things are only the mains trends that made and are making the World to change even and even more, faster and with an increasing complexity. Also the economic environment is facing a change that is rewriting again and again all the company and society paradigms, as well regarding Innovation and the way to be entrepreneur, with the implications concerning how innovation is today generated. The target of this study is to observe and describe what is happening from the points of view of the Big Companies (BCs) in their continuously adapting process into the evolving Innovation Challenge. In particular we will work on the relations between BCs and startups under the prospective of the actual Open Innovation discipline, focusing on the M&A (merges & acquisitions) market, especially in the High Tech Sector. To understand what is happening in the actual state of the art and which is the possible future scenario, is necessary to have a complete theoretical framework of the concept of innovation and its historical evolution conveyed by the work of large companies. This starting point is fundamental to be able to elaborate the actual economical data and trends of the M&A market, in a global prospective. Is possible to conclude that the startups acquisition process becomes today mainly an information managing problem for the BC, where is fundamental for corporations and startups to be present in the technological hubs, where the best are actually located in the USA. Emerged a drain from Europe, as nets seller of startups, to the United States of technology, Innovation and know-how with clear advantages for USA’s BCs.
Although the global scale, is still essential the importance for the BC to have an efficient local startups ecosystem. Emerged also that the SMEs risks to be completely excluded from the M&A market. The acquisitions of high innovative startups is made for first by BCs that are ex-startups. As threat for the BCs emerged the slide effects created by themselves in the startup ecosystem in a optic of growing concentration of technologies and competitive advantages in their hands, especially in the High Tech. A concentration of power without precedents in the BCs past trends.. A threat for the SMEs and the startup systems in the long term and so finally for the related M&A market too.