A year of internal venture research, matched in 23 minutes

Client

Date

$5B+ global marine engineering and offshore group

09/2026

The challenge

A $5B+ global marine engineering and offshore group runs its strategy and innovation work through a small team. The analyses that team produces are worth having and expensive to make: one venture market study took the best part of a year to complete internally, so work of that depth happened a few times a year at most.

The solution

FifthRow set up an evaluation and competitor-intelligence capability the group's own strategy and innovation people run. An idea, a market or a company goes in; a sized, evidenced assessment comes out, built to the same structure every time so two of them can be set side by side.

6,322

analyst-hours equivalent, 3 FTEs

23 minutes

to match a year of internal work

Venture market study23 minutes, against a year internally

Idea screening8 adjacency ideas on one standard

Competitor intelligence8 signal streams per company read

Evidence base9,342 sources analysed

Analyst-hours equivalent6,322 hours saved; equivalent to 3 FTEs

01 — ADJACENCY IDEA SCREENING

A group this size produces more adjacency ideas than it can ever study properly, so the ones that get examined tend to be the ones with a sponsor rather than the ones with a market. A fixed evaluation battery was set up so every idea faces the same questions.

Core Activities

Sized the addressable market behind each idea, on one method
Tested technical feasibility against what the group can already do
Scored strategic fit against where the group already operates
Assessed business impact and sustainability impact on the same scale
Built out a business model and a competitive picture for each idea

The Results

A comparable set of assessments across the whole idea portfolio rather than a deep study of the one or two that had a champion, with every idea carrying a market size, a feasibility read and a fit score built the same way.

adjacency ideas evaluated to one standard

02 — VENTURE MARKET SIZING

The group had already worked one venture opportunity through by hand, over the best part of a year. Putting the same question to the platform was the group's own test of what the capability was actually worth.

Core Activities

Read a venture market the group had already researched itself, as a comparison
Diagnosed the environmental and market drivers behind the opportunity
Quantified the economic cost the problem imposes on the regions affected
Assessed the competing technical approaches and where the group could win
Sized addressable, serviceable and obtainable market from exposure and cost data
Returned priority regions, entry routes and revenue models in one synthesis

The Results

A sized, evidenced market read with priority regions and entry routes attached, produced in a single run and compared by the group directly against research it had already completed itself.

23 minutes

to match a year of internal work

03 — COMPETITOR DEEP DIVES

Deep competitor reads happened when results or strategy updates landed, and each one was a project of its own. The whole read was set up as a single system that returns the same structure every time it is pointed at a company.

Core Activities

Mapped a competitor's products, positioning and pricing in one pass
Rebuilt its business model and route to market from evidence rather than assumption
Tracked eight streams of signal per company, from product moves to regulation
Identified the competitor's own rivals and where its position is exposed
Re-ran the whole read months later against the identical structure

The Results

A complete, evidenced read on a company, produced end to end in under an hour on re-run and structured identically each time, so two reads months apart show what changed rather than who wrote them.

4,297

analyst-hours equivalent, competitor deep dives

What it proved

Eight adjacency ideas went through the same six-part evaluation instead of being argued one at a time. One venture market study came back in 23 minutes against work the group had taken almost a year to complete by hand. A full competitor read now runs end to end and re-runs against the same structure months later. Across the engagement that is 134 studies over 427 analysis steps.

What the group holds is a way of producing analysis of that depth without clearing a quarter to do it, and a set of methods that sit in its own catalogue rather than in the head of whoever ran them last. Across those 134 runs the platform records 6,322 analyst-hours saved, the equivalent of 3 full-time analysts over the period.

Results

Metric	Benchmark	Result	Improvement
Venture market study	Almost a year of internal work	One run, 23 minutes	A year's work matched in one sitting
Idea evaluation	Ideas examined one at a time, when sponsored	8 ideas, six dimensions each	Portfolio compared on one standard
Competitor deep dive	A project each time, on the reporting calendar	Full read, re-run in 34 minutes	Frequency no longer set by effort
Comparability over time	Each read assembled its own way	One structure, re-run identically	Two reads show change, not style
Analyst-hours saved	Strategic analyses produced by hand	6,322 hours across 134 runs	Equivalent of adding 3 full-time analysts

ONE EVALUATION STANDARD

Every adjacency idea is scored on the same six dimensions, so a portfolio can be ranked rather than argued one idea at a time.

REPRODUCIBLE MARKET SIZING

Addressable, serviceable and obtainable market are derived from exposure and cost evidence, so a sizing can be re-derived rather than defended.

IDENTICAL RE-RUNS

A competitor read returns the same structure every time, so two reads months apart show what actually moved rather than a difference in house style.

MULTI-SIGNAL COVERAGE

Product, financial, leadership, partnership, regulatory and brand signals arrive inside one read, so a competitor picture is not stitched together from separate searches.

METHODS OUTLIVE THE ANALYST

Evaluation and diligence methods sit in the group's own catalogue, so a method survives the person who first ran it.

DEPTH WITHOUT A PROJECT

Analysis of the depth normally reserved for a funded exercise can be run on a question that would never have justified one.