AiThority Interview with Luke Butler and Laura Plunkett, Executive Director, Startup Engagement at Comcast NBCUniversal

Hi, Laura and Luke. Welcome to our Interview Series. Please tell us a little bit about your journey in the industry and how you started at Comcast?

Laura: I started working in the corporate venture space in 2016 at Saint-Gobain, a large french multinational and fell in love with the function. In March of 2020 (right at the start of the pandemic) I joined (albeit virtually) the amazing team at LIFT Labs to focus on post-accelerator stage, enterprise-ready startup business development.

Luke: I joined Comcast five years ago having spent a number of years working for the Mayor of Philadelphia and at a venture-backed startup in Philly. Part of my focus in City Hall was to increase investment and support for startups, so the opportunity to do that at a global scale with Comcast was an incredible one.

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What has been your biggest achievement in the post-COVID months? How do you plan to propel your success for future growth in your current organization?

Our team has continued to drive incredible traction with our business for the companies in our portfolio. We are incredibly proud that 100% of the startups in our 2022 accelerator class secured pilots and proofs of concepts with Comcast, NBCUniversal, or Sky and the majority of later-stage companies we’ve worked with have translated pilots into commercial deals.

We are constantly looking at innovation, growth opportunities, and exploring emerging trends that could impact Comcast’s businesses. Our accelerators allow us to learn from startups who are innovating and working in growth areas, while also building potential future relationships. One of the shifts we’re making this year is to be even more focused on categories of strategic interest to Comcast and to really concentrate on areas – like startup-corporate partnerships – where we can provide true value to founders.

Please tell us more about LIFT Labs. What is its core mission and vision?

Our core mission is to bring startups and Comcast NBCUniversal together to share insights, test solutions, and develop strategic long-term partnerships. We connect founders with leaders across the business to explore next-generation technologies and products that could impact our customers, employees, and communities.

Our new theme-driven accelerator aims to help Comcast NBCUniversal partner with startups to gain more insight on the applications and opportunities for emerging technologies. Throughout the six-week program, we facilitate connections between startup founders and leaders from across Comcast NBCUniversal as well as providing programming tailored to the company’s stage. This hyper-focused, concentrated program allows founders to fully immerse themselves in their growth opportunities and develop relationships with Comcast and our broader corporate network.

Which technology start-ups are you on-boarding in your LIFT Labs initiative?

Our first program kicks off on May 22 and will include 6-8 startups focusing on Generative AI applications, services, and technology. We encourage startups at various stages in their entrepreneurial journeys, from those that are pre-seed to those more enterprise-ready to apply before the April 9 deadline.

Later this year, we will be announcing other theme-driven accelerators focused on emerging trends in areas such as connectivity, entertainment, and more. If founders would like to be considered for future programs they can tell us about themselves here.

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What is the future of AI startups that join the LIFT Labs network program?

At the conclusion of the accelerator, we will continue to provide alumni with dedicated support to assist in pilot execution and foster connections to relevant business units at Comcast NBCUniversal, in addition to other companies that are part of the LIFT Labs network.

Since we launched our first accelerator in 2018, more than 80% of our portfolio companies have landed a proof of concept, pilot, or commercial deal with Comcast NBCUniversal and have gone on to raise more than $136M to date.

The last two years have accelerated digital transformation for businesses of all sizes and stature. AI and Machine learning capabilities have multiplied at an equally ruthless pace. What has been the biggest lesson for you when you look at the AI domains today?

What’s most exciting is the rate of startup formation in this category and the growing range of use cases that can leverage this technology, particularly when it comes to Generative AI. This is still such a nascent field which means there is so much learning and experimentation to be done, which is an exciting challenge for our team.

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Your take on the new buzzwords in AI-driven applications and how these transcend boundaries within and outside the organization? 

There’s certainly a lot of noise out there at the moment. As we look at early-stage startups in this category we try to tune out the noise by focusing on a few key things. First, the founder – do they have the track record, tenacity, and empathy that will help them navigate the ups and downs of building a startup? Second, are they solving an unmet need or identifying a new opportunity? And third, do we think we can be uniquely helpful to them at this stage of their growth?

Thank you, Luke and Laura ! That was fun and we hope to see you back on AiThority.com soon.