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The advisory firm scaled enterprise AI execution capabilities, expanded its European and Asian presences, and intensified its Piloting, CVC, and M&A offerings to Members.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA — Silicon Foundry, a Kearney company, marked 2025 as a pivotal year in its evolution, moving decisively from innovation advisory into hands-on execution as enterprises accelerated the deployment of artificial intelligence and venture-driven growth initiatives. Over the past year, the firm expanded its global footprint, deepened its enterprise AI execution capabilities, and broadened its innovation offerings to support clients not just in identifying opportunity but in piloting, scaling, and delivering measurable outcomes.
As corporations moved beyond AI experimentation toward structured pilots, agentic solutions, and enterprise-wide deployments, Silicon Foundry emerged as a trusted execution partner to over 50 multinational corporations, governments, and private market investors. With two-thirds of its business now driven by clients outside the United States, the firm scaled its global team and execution platforms across AI, corporate venture capital, pilot studios, and M&A to meet rising demand for disciplined, outcome-driven innovation.
“This has been a breakthrough year in every sense,” said Neal Hansch, CEO of Silicon Foundry. “We expanded the global coverage of our professionals and ecosystems we’re deeply embedded in, broadened the ways in which we support the innovation agendas of our Members, and scaled the execution of outcomes across our offerings. The momentum we built over the last year is representative, durable, and, as expected, has continued to accelerate into the first quarter of 2026.”
Dominance of Artificial Intelligence
Across all industries, enterprise AI and the exploration/adoption of agentic solutions emerged as the single strongest demand driver over 2025 and into 2026. Universally, corporations increasingly sought understanding of the true ‘state of play’ – eager to separate hype from reality – and an unbiased view on the crowded landscape of emerging AI platforms and capabilities. With a sense of urgency balanced with justifiable caution, leaders are anxious to selectively leverage AI to enhance operational efficiencies and unlock new opportunities for their businesses.
At the same time, these leaders are seeking clarity on how to gauge enterprise readiness, navigate endless vendor noise, and decide between the available buy-build-partner options that exist today. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, the undeniable epicenter of the AI revolution and home to nearly two-thirds of all AI-related venture capital funding, SiF has further solidified its role over the past year as an independent, trusted advisor to C-suite leaders navigating these challenges and opportunities. Enterprises increasingly turned to SiF for systematic, comprehensive support and structured pathways to identify, evaluate, pilot, and scale the rollout of, investment into, or acquisition of relevant emerging technologies.
Expansion Across Europe & Asia
While SiF has served a wide range of corporations hailing from across Europe and Asia since its inception over a decade ago, it was a milestone year for the firm as it established direct presence with team members today on the ground in Germany, France, and Japan. This expansion fulfills the firm’s previously announced growth plans and reflects increasing enterprise demand for structured, execution-driven innovation programs that bridge major innovation ecosystems. Similarly, in the Middle East, SiF’s footprint and impact have broadened in recent quarters to support the design and operation of Innovation Hub programs and accelerators in the UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia.
In addition to growing its roster of full-time talent, SiF actively added to its Venture Partner program, comprised of seasoned industry leaders who have spent decades building companies, shaping markets, and leading complex transformations inside F1000 enterprises. These extended colleagues bring an additional layer of depth to SiF’s work, expanding the firm’s deep networks, contributing targeted industry expertise, and helping SiF provide its Members with unique and proprietary, real-time insights.
From Advisory to Execution
Across the enterprise landscape in 2025, corporate leadership teams sharpened their focus on disciplined venture execution, operating efficiency, and scalable innovation models. As organizations moved beyond strategy and sensing toward real deployment, SiF accelerated its evolution from trusted advisor to hands-on execution partner. This shift has been most visible across SiF’s Corporate Venture Capital, Pilot Studio, and Corporate Development as a Service (CDaaS) offerings, leading Members to turn to SiF to help launch and operate the mechanisms required to turn innovation into measurable business impact.
Corporate Venture Capital teams, in particular, sought operating structures that would allow them to move faster, focus scarce internal resources, and deliver clearer outcomes from strategic capital deployment. Today, SiF supports more than 15 corporate venture programs collectively managing over $1 billion in strategic capital, working side by side with internal teams to tighten fund thesis, source opportunities, diligence targets, structure investments, and activate partnerships that extend well beyond the check. With more than 3,000 corporations investing in startups last year and one in five startup funding rounds now including a corporate backer, the need for disciplined execution, governance, and integration has never been higher.
In parallel, SiF formally launched two execution oriented services to meet rising enterprise demand. Pilot Studio, a joint Silicon Foundry and Kearney offering, was designed to bridge the persistent gap between innovation strategy and implementation by enabling rapid, high-impact pilots with emerging AI and technology startups. Built to move beyond innovation theater, Pilot Studio provides a structured, repeatable model that helps enterprises identify priority use cases, source and vet startups globally, launch pilots, track outcomes, and prepare the organization for scale. Early engagements have helped clients compress AI ideation to adoption timelines from years to months while creating clear pathways to enterprise deployment.
Alongside Pilot Studio, SiF expanded its Corporate Development as a Service (CDaaS) offering to support corporate development and strategy teams that are under pressure to execute growth initiatives without expanding permanent headcount. Acting as a true extension of internal teams, CDaaS supports the full lifecycle from market landscapes and acquisition theses through diligence and deal execution, allowing clients to pursue inorganic growth opportunities with greater speed and confidence.
Experiences & Executive Treks
When the right mix of visionary leaders, bold thinkers, and diverse perspectives comes together in the same room, game-changing ideas take shape. Experiences, curated events by SiF, are a core component of our offerings to Members and how the firm physically convenes its global network. Every year, SiF develops a slate of intimate, high-impact gatherings where forward-thinking executives, founders, investors, and thought leaders can connect, exchange ideas, and uncover opportunities to spark candid dialogue and explore transformative trends redefining business. Last year, SiF delivered a robust slate of experiential programming, hosting more than 40 invite-only events across the globe, spanning topical interactive roundtable discussions to intimate satellite events held in parallel to bellwether annual industry conferences around the world, including CERAWeek, CES, FII, GCVI, HumanX, Manifest, NRF, MWC, JP Morgan Healthcare conference, etc.
In addition to these events for its community, SiF’s team conducted over 25 private Executive Treks over the past year for its Members and clients of Kearney. Ranging from condensed half-day experiences to multi-day regional immersions designed to widen perspectives into the art of the possible. These innovation-focused experiences were hosted in San Francisco, New York City, Frisco, Los Angeles, and London, among other destinations. Key trends addressed, and representative themes of these treks included:
- Intelligent Enterprise: Unlocking Growth Through Agents + Applied AI
- CPG Next: Consumer Signals and Innovation Shaping What’s Ahead
- Growth Horizons: Corporate Expansion and Emerging Innovation Hubs
- Financial Services Reinvented: Leadership and Technology Transformation
- Procurement Elevated: AI Skills for a Smarter Supply Chain
- From Product to Shelf: Inventory Intelligence Powering Modern Commerce
Intended not just to inspire but lead to action, these executive treks often take place in the context of upcoming or already underway digital transformation initiatives. In collaboration with Kearney, a major retailer Member progressed from a series of brief immersion treks into an expanded Pilot Studio engagement within the consumer sector, underscoring how treks are increasingly serving as a gateway to full-scale innovation execution programs.
The Collectives as Strategic Connective Layer
Launched just over a year ago, The Collectives membership program serves as a critical connective layer for insights gathering, peer-to-peer knowledge sharing, curated relationship building, and a stage set to empower enterprise collaborations. This past fall, SiF and Kearney convened a select group of two dozen C-suite operators, entrepreneurs, and venture investors in Amsterdam for the inaugural Assembly of the TC// Energy + Utilities Collective. Key themes across the multi-day gathering focused on collaborative approaches to grid modernization, decarbonization, and infrastructure resilience. Attending companies represented 15 countries and hundreds of billions of dollars in market capitalizations, annual revenues, and budgeted spending. SiF is excited to announce that the next Assembly of this Collective is scheduled to take place in Boston, adjacent to the MIT campus, later this spring.
Silicon Foundry’s Outlook For 2026
As enterprise innovation moves decisively from exploration to execution and measurable ROI, SiF enters 2026 with clarity and momentum. The global innovation landscape is tightening around delivery, and the data reinforces that shift.
Corporate venture capital is at an all-time high. Corporate participation in startup funding continues to expand, marking a 29% increase in the number of active corporate investors year-over-year, as they seek strategic access to emerging technologies, AI capabilities, and new growth vectors. At the same time, enterprise priorities are shifting toward execution. After several years of AI experimentation, leaders are demanding proof points, production deployments, and business cases that stand up to scrutiny. Recent CIO and IT leader surveys show 60% of companies now using AI in active production (up from 39% the year prior), while 90% plan to increase AI spending in 2026, with many allocating dedicated AI budgets. The message is clear: AI has moved from experimentation to core infrastructure.
M&A activity is expected to remain strong into 2026, driven less by consolidation and more by capability acquisition. Morgan Stanley reports global M&A volume rose approximately 40% in 2025, fueled by large transactions, and expects momentum to continue as Fortune 1000 companies pursue AI, software, and technology-enabled capabilities. Despite ongoing geopolitical and macro uncertainty, Silicon Foundry believes AI adoption across enterprises and consumers will continue to accelerate, driven by sustained pressure to unlock productivity, differentiate competitively, and modernize operating models. Markets in early 2026 are signaling a clear pivot toward execution discipline, including governance, integration, data readiness, and ROI measurement.
Silicon Foundry is well-positioned for this moment. As Members demand faster pathways from strategy to outcomes, SiF’s execution offerings are designed to help enterprises move from opportunity identification to pilots, partnerships, acquisitions, and scaled adoption with measurable business impact.
Silicon Foundry’s top priorities for 2026 include:
- Formalizing its European operations and expanding regional enterprise engagement
- Scaling its CVC advisory and CDaaS programs
- Continuing to support corporations in defining AI strategy and deploying real-world pilots
“We entered 2026 with clarity, scale, and continued momentum,” said Neal Hansch, CEO of Silicon Foundry. “Our next phase is about institutionalizing what we’ve built, globally expanding our operating model, strengthening how enterprises execute through CVC, and continuing to move innovation from strategy into real, measurable business outcomes.”
ABOUT SILICON FOUNDRY:
Silicon Foundry, a Kearney company, is an innovation advisory firm that catalyzes opportunities and accelerates change to push the frontier of what’s possible. The firm helps its Members navigate new technologies and market shifts, discover and engage with key emerging leaders, and unlock high-impact customer, partnership, investment, co-creation, and acquisition opportunities. Our Members include a diverse set of the world’s leading multinational corporations across a wide range of industries, from entertainment to retail, telecom to transportation, oil & gas to mining, chemicals to cosmetics, sovereign wealth and economic development organizations, and many more. Learn more at www.sifoundry.com.
ABOUT KEARNEY:
Kearney is a leading global management consulting firm. For nearly 100 years, Kearney has been a trusted advisor to C-suites, government bodies, and nonprofit organizations. Driven to be the difference between a big idea and making it happen, the firm works alongside its clients to regenerate their businesses and create a future that works for everyone. Learn more at: www.kearney.com.
