Startup as a partner of cooperation for big company in the agri-food industry: Analysis of forms of cooperation on examples

Currently obtaining and maintaining a competitive advantage require implementation of innovation in companies. This trend is mainly caused by the rapid development cycle of technologies. Thus, there is a question of adaptability especially regarding introducing innovation. It can be assumed that cooperation between entities at various stages of the business development is increasingly important and large enterprises from the agri-food industry are willing to interact with startups. This interaction may allow startups to overcome the difficulties that are emerging at the early stage of the development such as the problem of delivering the reliable proof of concept. The goal of this paper is an analysis of cooperation and use of the synergies between large enterprises and startups especially in order to address needs of innovation in the economy. The cooperation can take various forms, and this paper will discuss selected types of collaboration between large enterprises and startups, which are related to business acceleration activities, co-development, co-branding, acquisitions, and acqui-hire.