Sabine VanderLinden, Alchemy Crew Ventures Co-Founder and CEO: “Our playbooks embed startup solutions directly into a corporate’s operating model—aligning with compliance, procurement, IT, and go-to-market needs.”

Founded in June 2020 by Sabine VanderLinden, Alchemy Crew Ventures is a pioneering commercialization studio based in London, United Kingdom. With a mission to bridge the gap between corporate innovation and startup commercialization, the company serves as a trusted growth partner to senior transformation leaders and tech founders worldwide. Alchemy Crew Ventures was created in response to the inefficiencies and missed opportunities often seen in traditional innovation programs—think pilot projects that fail to scale or accelerators driven more by publicity than impact. Alchemy Crew Ventures delivers a unique “commercialization-first” approach, specifically tailored for the insurance and financial services sectors. Through open innovation, ecosystem thinking, and applied experimentation, the company helps organizations accelerate the validation and adoption of digital technologies. By working closely with R&D, transformation, and corporate venturing teams, it ensures that innovation initiatives lead to measurable outcomes and long-term value creation.

The company offers two core venture clienting labs: R&D Labs and Commercialization Labs. R&D Labs help organizations stay ahead of market and technology trends, uncovering new investment and collaboration opportunities. Commercialization Labs tackle urgent business challenges using agile validation techniques that fast-track the adoption of startup solutions—de-risking corporate growth efforts and democratizing tech discovery. Alchemy Crew Ventures works with a roster of top-tier clients including Zurich, Travelers, ERGO/Munich Re, Nippon Life, Ivanti, IBM, and SAS. Its global outlook and proven methodologies have made it a go-to partner for forward-thinking enterprises seeking meaningful and scalable innovation.

In conversation with Sabine VanderLinden, Co-Founder and CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures

Can you explain your services in brief?

Venture-client Labs is the new terminology used to encompass the process of commercialising tech startup ventures. When I started this new corporate innovation process five years ago, we decided to use the word adoption because it was simpler for corporates and startups to understand.

Our services span:

R&D Labs– are pure research agendas. The problems are solved by evaluating whether ventures are already available to solve the problem at hand.

Venture-Client Labs are commercialization or adoption labs. They include the R&D part but go further by building the adoption blueprints that include the workflow and then going to commercialisation, the recurring adoption of the startups within a 6 to 9-month timeline.

 Commercialization Labs – accelerating revenue from paid pilots to full-scale deployment.

Futures Think Tank – aligning innovation opportunities with emerging risks through data, partnerships, and scenario planning.

Investment-as-a-Service – bridging corporate venturing and capital in partnership with Mandalore Partners.

Your “Discover-Investigate-Validate-Adopt-Activate-Amplify” framework is core to your process. How does this blueprint de-risk collaborations compared to traditional corporate venturing? With 55,000 ventures scouted and 162 accelerated, what metrics or success stories prove this framework’s ability to turn experiments into irrefutable ROI?

Unlike traditional CVC models, which often invest too early or without operational alignment, our DIVAAA™ framework prioritizes adoption over ownership. We first discover the problem the corporation is aiming to solve. We then investigate which ventures with proven traction are already solving the problem with other corporations. We then validate them in-market with paid pilots. Only ventures with tangible results move to full adoption and scaled amplification.

Now I realized that to drive success the brands must activate and amplify their relationship so reason why I also do media work with brands applying influencer marketing techniques.

Results? Over 55,000 ventures scouted, 162 accelerated, many having been operationalized through strategic adoption or revenue-generating partnerships with corporations.

The Alchemy Crew emphasizes “industrializing” learnings from venturing. How do you ensure scalability when integrating niche innovations like AI or Climate Tech into large corporate structures? Can you share an example where your playbooks enabled a Fortune 500 company to adopt a startup’s solution across multiple business units or geographies?

Scalability starts with context. Our playbooks embed startup solutions directly into a corporate’s operating model—aligning with compliance, procurement, IT, and go-to-market needs. Most the work done by corporations when thinking about corporate-startup partnership tend to fall into the process innovation box still. For example, we work with Fortune 500 companies to help them adopt AI-driven underwriting or claims automation tool across multiple hubs by first mapping use cases, then codifying workflows across geographies using design thinking techniques.

Your R&D Labs focus on “validating tangible priorities” for enterprises. How do you balance corporate strategic goals with the disruptive potential of ventures, especially in fast-evolving sectors like Insurtech or FinTech? What criteria determine which of the 400+ evaluated ventures advance to the commercialization phase?

We start with “validated pain”—not innovation wishlists. It is actually important to work directly with the business unit owners to really unpack the challenges they face in their everyday work. Every venture we recommend has a direct line to a business goal, P&L pressure, or ESG mandate. From 1,000+ evaluated ventures annually, only those solving clear, high-priority problems with evidence of market fit advance to the commercialization stage.

With 50% of startups failing within five years, how does your Commercialization Lab turn partnership into sustainable revenue streams? How do paid pilots and adoption frameworks (e.g., for AI-driven insurers) ensure ventures meet corporate financial targets while retaining agility?

The corporations don’t just run pilots—they price them, meaning that they value the time, effort, solutions of the startups and scaleups by engaging in commercial relationships. Every engagement includes clear financial KPIs, defined success metrics, and go/no-go thresholds. For example, in our work with AI-driven solutions, we work with insurers that are keen to engage in paid pilots that transitioned into multi-year licensing deals tied to underwriting or claims management cost savings and automation gains. Efficiency is the name of the game in the sector right now.

The Alchemy Crew claims “unrivalled access” to 2.5M+ startups globally. How does this ecosystem drive competitive advantage for clients vs. traditional VC firms or accelerators? Can you quantify how your network accelerates time-to-market or reduces partnership discovery costs?

Speed and precision. With proprietary access to over 4.5M global ventures and scouting algorithms tailored to emerging risk domains, we reduce venture discovery costs by up to 60% and time-to-market by 6–9 months. We do this every day and sometime the turnaround for our R&D mandates are a couple of weeks so we need the data to help our clients make the right commercial decisions. Clients tap into a vetted pool—not a crowded pitch day.

Your Investment-as-a-Service model collaborates with Mandalore Partners. How does aligning venture validation with financing options create “virtuous circles” for corporates and

 startups? Does this approach prioritize equity stakes, strategic acquisitions, or outcome-based partnerships?

The Investment-as-a-Service model refined by Mandalore Partners is very useful for corporations needing to tap into expert VC skills. Many CVCs over the years have not done that well. Mandalore Partners’ approach is to align capital with commercial traction. Once a venture proves ROI via our validation frameworks, Mandalore Partners can work with the right corporate investors or co-invest—giving corporates confidence that they’re not betting alone. This unlocks options from equity-free partnerships to strategic investment and future acquisitions, all grounded in real adoption, not FOMO.

What does the future hold for your company and its customers? Are exciting things on the way?

We are going through major societal changes. We’re doubling down on climate resilience, agentic AI, and scenario-driven strategic foresight. In 2025–2026, we’ll expand our think tanks, release open data ecosystems for insurers, and scale our commercialization playbooks into new regions—including North America, LATAM, and the UAE. For our clients, that means staying not just relevant—but resilient and future-proof. Many ask us about what happens in other key markets.

Meet the leader behind the success of Alchemy Crew Ventures

 Sabine VanderLinden, Co-Founder and CEO

Sabine VanderLinden is a three-time venture lab founder, author, and innovation strategist. Named one of the top 10 most influential women in InsurTech, she has helped scale over 180 ventures globally and shaped innovation strategies for the likes of Ergo/ Munich Re, CIGNA, Nippon Life, Travelers, Zurich among the few. Her mission? To move innovation from decks to deals—and make transformation tangible.

“With proprietary access to over 4.5M global ventures and scouting algorithms tailored to emerging risk domains, we reduce venture discovery costs by up to 60% and time-to-market by 6–9 months.”