Over the past few months I’ve spoken with startup founders, investors and supply chain leaders about how they (try to) work together. What has struck me is how often the same frustrations come up from each side, even if they describe them differently from their perspective.
It leaves me with the image of a school disco: supply chains on one side of the room, startups on the other, both interested in meeting but neither quite sure how to make the first move or whether it's worth the risk of looking silly in front of everyone.
From the operator’s side, innovation often feels like a personal risk. Artur Alves at MixMove told me their breakthrough came only because a manager at 3M was willing to take a chance. It turned out well but it might easily have gone the other way. That sense of career exposure seems to weigh heavily on decisions.
The systems themselves add to the hesitation. Supply chain IT is still largely monolithic, with interdependencies that make even small changes feel complicated. Founders described how conversations often run into the sand once they reach IT, because the safer option is usually to stick with the vendors already embedded.
Even when a supply chain leader is convinced, the final decision doesn’t always sit with them. Several people described how projects lose momentum when they reach the CFO or CEO, who may not come from a supply chain background and don’t always see the case in the same way.
And there is the simple question of bandwidth. Supply chain leaders are often caught up in day-to-day firefighting. As Jake at Returnal observed, even finding a slot in senior diaries to talk about innovation can be tough.
Founders, for their part, often struggle to get traction. Sean Elmurib at BackOps suggested that as many as 95% of AI pilots never go beyond pilot stage. It isn’t usually because the technology doesn’t work but because sponsorship, timing, budget or integration prove more difficult than expected.
Investors highlighted another issue: the way startups explain themselves. Will Harman at Apax reflected that he often comes away from a startup’s website still unsure what they actually do. It isn’t a lack of capability but rather that the story doesn’t always connect to the operator’s priorities. Many founders come from consulting or finance backgrounds, which makes them strong analytically but not always attuned to the lived realities of supply chain practitioners.
Another recurring theme is the reliance on internal champions. Startups often depend on one person inside a corporate to make their case. Those champions themselves admit they can’t sell the proposition as convincingly as the founders, yet they are the only ones with access to the decision makers. When those conversations are delayed or diluted, momentum dies quickly.
Startups also notice a gap between what companies say about innovation and how they behave internally. Returnal described seeing senior executives on stage talking passionately about being “champions of innovation,” only to find a very different, risk-averse culture in their follow-up meetings. That disconnect creates frustration.
Investors add another angle. Jon Bradford from Dynamo Ventures told me that many of the companies he meets aren’t “no's” so much as “not yet's.” It’s usually possible to spot the ones that won’t make it but much harder to know which of the promising ones will eventually succeed. That’s why investors think in portfolios: they expect most to fall short but rely on the few that break through.
There may be something here for operators. Instead of waiting for a crisis and then making one high-stakes choice, it might make sense to treat innovation more like an investment portfolio - running several small pilots, most of which won’t scale but which collectively build learning and occasionally surface something transformative.
Arnaud Houles from Nine Realms VC shared his perspective on corporate venturing. In his experience, many corporate VC units struggle to deliver real value. They are often symbolic, focused on consumer-facing innovation or marketing and disconnected from the operational side. For example, Nestlé eventually stepped away from running one directly and now invests through specialist funds. The more promising approach, he suggested, is venture clienting: not taking equity but building structured, repeatable ways for corporates to buy from and test startups.
From the private equity side, Harman explained that funds are under pressure to create more value from their existing portfolios. That makes them more open to innovations that deliver quickly. But even for them, separating genuine signal from marketing noise is difficult. He pointed out that even informed investors often find it hard to know which startups will scale. Many ask why so many promising supply chain tech firms stall after a few years.
Several conversations circled back to mindset. Jake argued that corporates approach startups with a default “no” or, at best. “not now.” He suggested flipping that around: start from a default “yes” and then work collaboratively on the blockers. That doesn’t mean committing to a rollout but it frames the dialogue as one of possibility rather than rejection.
And even if discussions don’t end in a commercial relationship, they can still create value. Startups learn how to refine their narrative and understand operator constraints; operators get exposure to new ideas and ways of thinking. Bradford put it simply: “all noise is good noise.” No meeting is wasted if it’s treated as part of a longer cycle of learning rather than a binary yes/no outcome.
There are still examples where it works. MixMove with 3M. Coca-Cola Europacific Partners piloting an AI solution for inventory optimisation that is now part of daily operations. Returnal noticing that the very largest companies - those with “heads of experimentation” or skunkworks teams - are often more open to pilots than mid-tier firms.
Some corporates have experimented with structured “beauty parade” models, where several startups present on a given theme and one is chosen for a pilot. It doesn’t solve every problem but it provides a pathway that is clearer than ad-hoc conversations.
And some startups are adapting their models, unbundling their offers into smaller, modular services that can sit on top of existing systems. This lowers the barrier for operators to test them without committing to a major transformation.
From these conversations, a few reflections stand out:
Operators could benefit from clearer structures to test startups without betting their reputations on a single project.
Startups may need more support in telling their story in ways that resonate with operator priorities rather than just their own technology.
Investors and corporate venture arms might play a more active role in de-risking the early stages - not only with capital but also with credibility and practical support.
Corporates could shift from occasional experiments toward more systematic venture clienting relationships.
And perhaps most importantly, shifting the mindset from a default “no” to a default “yes, let’s explore” could make the process less adversarial and more collaborative.
What I hope SCL-X can be is not another vendor showcase but a space where these realities are surfaced openly. A place where operators, startups and investors can approach innovation more like a set of small, portfolio-style bets, where venture clienting can move from theory to practice and where conversations are treated as valuable learning even when they don’t lead to immediate deals.
Because at the moment, it still feels like a disco where both sides want to meet - but need a little help to step onto the floor.