Mapping out the landscape for inorganic growth opportunities

PostNL is the largest Dutch mail and parcel delivery corporation with operations in the Netherlands and Belgium. Over the past years, PostNL has been a frontrunner in investing in smart networks and digital applications, enabling PostNL to provide clients with future-proof solutions that are valuable for both today and tomorrow.

Venture IQ works together with an interdisciplinary strategy team lead by Linda van Zomeren, Director of Growth at PostNL. Among others, Linda’s team is responsible for identifying and mapping out opportunities in adjacent markets and actively creating partnerships with other companies to develop new business models and revenue streams. PostNL asked Venture IQ for help to map out market segments in the food and health domains and to identify the most relevant companies to engage with.

‍Blurring market borders

One of the challenges that PostNL faced was that innovative companies can originate from a variety of sources and there is no structured database filled with all relevant companies and up-to-date information. Venture IQ tackled this problem using our software platform Catalist. One of the most powerful features of Catalist is that it can identify URLs on websites of your choosing, check whether these are companies and directly create company profiles. For each company profile, the website text of the companies is automatically added making the entire list of company profiles searchable. To illustrate, Venture IQ noticed that within a healthcare search, companies are required to have a NEN7510 certificate to participate in the market. Using the publicly available list of NEN7510 certified companies, Venture IQ was able to quickly create a longlist of >100 companies that had relevance to the scope of PostNL.

In partnership towards success

Using a data-driven methodology, Venture IQ narrowed the longlist down to a shortlist of 5 companies that complied most with the PostNL’s own search criteria. Venture IQ organised 1-on-1 sessions with the Founders & CEOs to get a deeper understanding of the companies’ value propositions and partnering appetite, with the goal of identifying the most suitable companies for PostNL. After a final call with PostNL, Venture IQ and PostNL agreed on the top 3 with whom Venture IQ connected the PostNL team.