Backing Grit and Innovation: Inside HG Ventures’ Unique Corporate Venture Model

Highlights

• HG Ventures combines venture capital discipline with strategic corporate resources to invest in hard tech and deep tech startups.
• Investment focus is stage-agnostic and geographic-flexible, emphasizing investments only where value can be added.
• Key founder traits valued include adaptability, grit, perseverance, and accountability in the face of adversity.
• Venture investing is about long-term partnerships, requiring respect, fairness, and genuine support beyond capital.
• HG Ventures features a streamlined investment committee that enables quick but thoughtful decisions with executive involvement.
• John’s multicultural background informs a flexible, inclusive approach to due diligence and dealings with diverse entrepreneurs.
• The current venture climate is challenging with reduced liquidity, impacting fundraising and exit opportunities, demanding resilience.

Summary

In this episode of the Innovators and Investors Podcast, host Christian Marquez interviews John Glushik, Managing Director at HG Ventures, the corporate venture arm of The Heritage Group. John provides an in-depth overview of HG Ventures’ unique investment approach, emphasizing their blend of traditional venture capital discipline with the strategic advantages offered by being part of a large, diversified industrial company. HG Ventures focuses on “hard tech” and deep tech investments, spanning multiple stages and geographies, with a key criterion being their ability to add meaningful value to portfolio companies.

John shares his extensive background in venture capital and engineering, highlighting how his diverse life experiences—including time spent in Europe—have shaped his adaptable and culturally aware investment philosophy. A strong focus is placed on the qualities of founding teams, particularly perseverance, grit, adaptability, and accountability, which John sees as critical for navigating the inevitable ups and downs faced by early-stage ventures. Drawing on real-world examples, he illustrates how successful startups pivot and evolve through changing market dynamics, underscoring the importance of leadership and team cohesion.

The discussion also explores HG Ventures’ decision-making structure, which balances agility with rigorous diligence, and how their investment committee includes senior leadership from the parent company to facilitate swift yet thoughtful decisions. John highlights the difficulties currently facing the venture sector, especially in terms of liquidity and fundraising challenges, and stresses the importance of focusing on building resilient businesses that can weather these headwinds.

Culture, both within the HG Ventures team and between investors and entrepreneurs, is a recurring theme. John stresses respect, open communication, and fairness as foundational to successful partnerships and reflects critically on the transactional nature of many venture investor-entrepreneur interactions that hinder rapport-building. The podcast touches on the pandemic’s impact on venture processes, the gradual integration of digital tools in diligence and deal sourcing, and the enduring value of in-person connections.

Finally, John reflects philosophically on what he would tell his younger self—prioritizing partnership and giving value before receiving—and expresses admiration for visionary entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs, who combined relentless innovation with strong business leadership.

Key Insights

• Corporate Venture with Venture Discipline: HG Ventures’ structure blends the autonomy and focus of a traditional venture fund with the multi-industry technological expertise of The Heritage Group. This hybrid model allows for nimble investment decisions without corporate bureaucratic delays and offers portfolio companies substantial market and technical resources otherwise unavailable to pure financial investors. This synergy is vital for success in complex, often “hard tech” sectors where capital alone is insufficient.
• Adaptability and Perseverance as Hallmarks of Success: John emphasizes the need for founders to remain steadfast yet flexible, prepared to pivot business models and teams when market realities shift. His example of Titan Energy—pivoting from second-life battery diagnostics to supporting manufacturers—demonstrates how operational agility combined with a clear vision enables startups to survive and thrive despite early struggles. Moreover, the founder’s ability to take accountability for setbacks and incorporate learnings is a key predictor of long-term success.
• Evaluating Founders Beyond the Pitch: The team invests considerable time in informal settings outside of formal pitch meetings—including casual conversations and shared activities—to assess founders’ character and team dynamics. This qualitative due diligence seeks behavioral signals about collaboration, leadership, and resilience, reinforcing that successful investment decisions rely on nuanced human insights rather than solely on presentations and quantitative data. The attitude founders show toward their teams and partners can reveal how they will navigate future challenges.
• Cultural Sensitivity Enhances Due Diligence: John’s multicultural upbringing enables him to appreciate diverse entrepreneurial approaches, viewing no single founder archetype as the only road to success. This perspective helps HG Ventures maintain objectivity, avoid bias, and foster open-mindedness in evaluating global opportunities, which is crucial in today’s interconnected innovation landscape where cultural context influences business behavior and market strategies.
• Building Relationship-Based Venture Ecosystems: John challenges the prevalent transactional approach in venture investing where entrepreneurs seeking capital are often treated as just deal flow sources. HG Ventures consciously builds a culture of mutual respect, continuous feedback, and valuing entrepreneurs as partners, recognizing that how investors treat all founders—both funded and unfunded—impacts their reputation and ability to attract top talent. This approach encourages stronger, longer-lasting partnerships that go beyond financing events.
• Liquidity Crunch and Its Ripple Effects: The venture industry currently faces a prolonged liquidity drought with fewer IPOs and exit avenues, causing funds to focus capital on existing portfolios and creating a tougher fundraising environment. John anticipates this period to persist, emphasizing that startups must develop defensible value propositions and risk mitigation strategies to attract acquisitions or other exit opportunities. This environment rewards patience, operational discipline, and strategic foresight.
• Selective Digitization of Venture Processes: While venture capital remains relationship-driven, HG Ventures is experimenting with technology tools to enhance market research, data synthesis, and opportunity scouting. Yet, John acknowledges the irreplaceable value of in-person interactions for trust-building and decision-making, advocating a hybrid approach where technology supports, but does not replace, human judgment and collaboration. This tempered adoption reflects broader industry cautiousness about over-digitizing inherently human processes.

Conclusion

John Glushik’s insights reveal that successful corporate venture capital blends rigorous investment discipline with deep technical and market knowledge, built on authentic relationships with entrepreneurs. Emphasizing adaptability, perseverance, and respect, HG Ventures operates with a nimble, founder-centric approach amid a challenging venture environment. Through a transparent and collaborative team culture, combined with strategic use of technology, they seek to empower innovative startups that may not fit conventional VC molds but have strong potential to transform complex industries. John’s reflection on lessons learned and admiration for visionary leaders underscore a philosophy where giving value and nurturing partnership are foundational to sustained success in venture investing.

Stay up-to-date with John Glushik and his work with HG Ventures.

Follow the show on your podcast channel of choice of listen below.