The VentureFuel Visionaries

Payments may look simple — tap, swipe, click — but behind every transaction is a highly orchestrated system designed for scale, stability, and security. Prateek Khamesra, Director of Product at Visa, unpacks how innovation actually happens inside one of the world’s most critical financial infrastructures. We explore the technologies shaping the next wave of commerce — from agentic commerce and data-to-data transactions to blockchain, tokenization, stablecoins, and crypto — and what these shifts mean for enterprises operating in highly regulated environments. Prateek also shares how large organizations evaluate emerging technology and startup partnerships: Does it solve a real pain point? Can it scale globally? And how easily can it integrate into complex enterprise systems? For corporate strategy, innovation, and R&D leaders navigating disruption, this conversation offers a practical look at how to innovate responsibly — without compromising trust.

Katie Teuber, Director of Startup Engagement at Comcast NBCUniversal LIFT Labs, shares how to identify the right startup partners, pilot their innovative solutions, and most-importantly scale them across a large enterprise. From AI transformation to building true partnerships (not just vendor relationships), Katie shares how she bridges the gap between startup speed and enterprise complexity to commercialize innovation at scale. From mutual transformation, to top-down and bottom-up buy-in, to the value of patience and persistence, to why innovation fails in silence (the need for internal story telling) – Katie gives a roadmap for how to commercialize innovation at scale.

Raju Dandigam, Engineering Manager at Navan, the all-in-one travel, corporate card, and expense management platform built for modern enterprises shares what it takes to build high-impact products that scale. Raju has more than 14 years of experience spanning front-end engineering, full-stack development, DevOps, and team leadership. From leading the development of Navan’s rewards and personal travel experiences to implementing automation that dramatically reduced production bugs, Raju brings a pragmatic perspective on modern engineering execution. In this conversation, we explore how engineering leaders balance speed and quality, why analytics should guide product decisions, and how front-end architecture becomes critical as products grow in complexity. Raju also shares lessons from shipping AI-powered features that users actually rely on — and the pitfalls enterprises face when integrating AI into real workflows. His core takeaway: focus on solving meaningful problems, build what’s core to your advantage, and partner for everything else in a world moving faster than ever.

Corporate innovation programs often generate activity but struggle to produce measurable business impact. Ronja Stoffregen, Director of Corporate Venturing at REHAU New Ventures, shares how venture clienting can bridge that gap by turning startup partnerships into operational outcomes. Leading REHAU’s corporate venturing efforts across mobility, manufacturing, medtech, and the built environment, Ronja focuses on embedding emerging technologies—especially industrial AI, automation, and sustainability—directly into production environments and supply chains. In this conversation, Ronja breaks down what makes venture clienting fundamentally different from traditional corporate venture capital and how enterprises can structure programs that deliver both near-term operational wins and long-term strategic advantage. She shares the frameworks her team uses to move from pilot to production, why she measures pain points solved, how she launched six startup pilots in six months, and what it takes to build a venture client unit with limited budget and headcount.

Scaling innovation inside a global legacy brand isn’t about ideas — it’s about execution, alignment, and measurable impact. Manasa Nalla, Associate Director of Product Innovation & Strategy at The Duracell Company, explores how enterprise leaders can move from innovation activity to scaled business growth. With nine years at Duracell spanning engineering, R&D, and product strategy, Manasa shares how she builds consumer-centric roadmaps, aligns 100+ external partners, and translates technical differentiation into compelling customer ROI. We discuss: What “innovation impact” really means inside a Fortune 1000 company, How to prioritize what makes it into the product roadmap — and what doesn’t, The story behind Duracell’s ProCell Cost Savings Calculator and proving labor savings to unlock growth, How to scale new products without getting trapped by legacy systems or internal politics, and Emerging technologies enterprise leaders should be watching from CES and beyond. If you’re in corporate strategy, innovation, CVC, or R&D, this episode is a practical guide to scaling innovation inside complex organizations.

With a data engineer career spanning telecom (AT&T) and global banking (Barclays), Monika brings a pragmatic perspective on what it really takes to move from experimentation to production-grade AI at massive scale for large enterprises. From embedding governance and control by design, to having process clarity and investing in AI literacy; from the importance of unified data to humans-in-the-loop; from creating custom metrics to measure real business value to using Evals and third parties to validate and build confidence; from managing tradeoffs like speed vs. security, scale vs. risk and to treat AI as infrastructure vs. getting stuck in POC-Mode. This is a masterclass in scaling AI capabilities that are reliable, governed, and adopted by the business.

AI is no longer a future bet — it’s a board-level mandate. But for corporate innovation leaders, the real question isn’t whether to invest in AI… it’s how to turn AI from experimentation theater into measurable enterprise value. Taylor Black, Director of AI & Venture Ecosystems in Microsoft’s Office of the CTO, works at the intersection of AI strategy, venture ecosystems, and internal venture building. Taylor brings a rare dual perspective: enterprise AI leadership inside one of the world’s largest technology companies — combined with firsthand startup-building experience. We unpack how AI takes impossible problems and makes them merely difficult, how this growth mindset of hyper abundance is paired with the enterprise rigor and the internal velocity needed to scale.

In this special episode, we recap the Startup City Info Session held on February 18, 2026, spotlighting Tomorrow.City USA, the U.S. edition of a premier urban innovation conference connecting city leaders, investors, and industry partners. We break down what makes Tomorrow.City USA a must-attend event for urban tech startups and why it’s a powerful platform for driving real-world impact. Learn how Startup City on the conference floor gives founders the opportunity to showcase solutions directly to municipal and corporate decision-makers. We also dive into the Startup City Pitch Competition powered by VentureFuel, including how to apply, pitch live, and compete for funding, mentorship, press exposure, and curated connections. If you're building in AI, infrastructure, mobility, sustainability, public safety, sports, digital twins, or community wellbeing, this episode outlines how to get involved and position your startup at the center of urban transformation.

Innovation leader Mark Treiber breaks down how corporates can stay ahead of platform shifts—from mobile and OTT to the creator economy and AI—and why the biggest mistake companies make is not making enough bets. From his experience at Nokia and CBS Sports to Paris Hilton’s 11:11 Media, Mark unpacks the collision of sports, media, culture, and technology, and how leaders can turn emerging platforms into real business value. Mark shares his framework for spotting what’s next, allocating capital in slower-growth environments, and navigating exponential change through startup partnerships and exploration.

Adèle Yaroulina, global co-innovation expert and author of the new book “Collaborate to Innovate: How Startups and Established Organizations Create Breakthrough Success Together,” joins Fred Schonenberg, Founder of VentureFuel, to unpack what it really takes for large organizations to turn startup partnerships into scalable growth engines. They challenge the myth that startup collaboration “isn’t worth the squeeze,” arguing instead that the real risk is chasing trends, FOMO-driven pilots, and innovation theater that never moves the business forward. Why successful innovation starts with a real problem worth solving, a clear business case, and disciplined design for scale from day one. The conversation explores the evolution of startup partnerships—from supplier to co-creator, trusted advisor, and eventually joint venture or acquisition—and why trust, ownership, and measurable outcomes are essential along the way. They tackle the realities of internal resistance, not-invented-here syndrome, and legacy thinking that can stall progress. If you’re serious about turning uncertainty into opportunity, thinking ahead so you don’t fall behind, and building partnerships that deliver real ROC, “Return on Collaboration”, this episode is a must-listen.