Heavy equipment manufacturer CNH Industrial has a long history of mergers and acquisitions, at times supervising legendary brands like Ferrari. But five years ago, as agtech was booming, the global giant was struggling to tap into the startup scene. The conglomerate turned to one of its longest-tenured executives, a swashbuckling Italian businessman named Michele Lombardi.
Lombardi had come up through CNH’s business development group, part of what he describes as a “black belt team” that forged corporate alliances at the highest levels. When the company came to him in 2019 with this new task, he was essentially starting a new chapter “from scratch.” “They got stuck, and they couldn’t really build a pipeline of successful transactions,” Lombardi told TechCrunch.
“When we started, we knew we had very limited reach. We had no network.” The way to build one? Just start talking, Lombardi explained.
In particular, he went right to the venture capital firms, knowing many would be looking for exits for their investments in startups building things like autonomous farm equipment or precision farming data. Those conversations led to more connections and in just a few years his growing team — which now sits at around 14 employees — had built that missing pipeline to interesting startups and founders. That work has led to 12 deals over the last five years, split between six acquisitions and six mostly minority investments.
They run the gamut technologically, rangi.