How CNH’s ‘black belt’ M&A head makes deals | TechCrunch

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, ranging from farm management software and to AI-powered drone imaging to satellite navigation and even tractor companies. 

The success of Lombardi’s team has matured at a time when, like many other sectors, venture investment in agtech has been hard to come by. Valuations, total amount invested and exits are all down from the highs a few years ago, according to data from PitchBook.

This drought has proved a ripe opportunity for companies like CNH, creating a sort of investment and acquisition arms race as they try to corner the market on new technologies. 

“Now is actually a great time” to be in corporate venture capital, he said. “Now is when you can really help, where you can really come in and be a good partner. There’s phenomenal opportunities out there, a lot of worried entrepreneurs. And it’s a great time to identify good ideas that maybe are more affordable.” 

Similar to other industries, Lombardi said agtech went through “a euphoric phase” three to four years ago, which he says inflated valuations “a bit too much.” 

“This downturn will be painful, but we’ll clean up a bit [of] the landscape from both investors that maybe don’t have the knowledge and experience to be in this space, and startups that probably never had a sufficiently articulated idea, or something that would end up being a competitive advantage that made them a sustainable enterprise,” he said. “The entire landscape will come out much, much stronger. And I think it will be great to be in that space with the experience we have developed in this period.”

A career he was built for

To build out his network, Lombardi leaned on his two decades of experience at CNH operating various arms of the multinational company’s sprawling agriculture and construction equipment business. 

He came into the company at a time when it was going through an enormous restructuring that involved the combination of the companies Case and New Holland (hence the modern consolidated name). His early days were spent inside CNH’s business development group in Italy, which he describes as a holding company that sat atop a wild cornucopia of companies that included Fiat, Ferrari and even a newspaper.

Over the next 20 years, he managed parts of CNH’s businesses in Switzerland, Thailand, China, Australia and New Zealand. With each post, Lombardi garnered fresh skills. While in Thailand, for instance, he oversaw the conglomerate’s entire Southeast Asia operations as it grew from a $40 million business to a $400 million affair.

That expansive experience directly informed the work he’s done since 2019 when he says he was “poached” back to Chicago to pilot CNH’s investment and M&A team. 

On the investment side, Lombardi stresses the key difference between being a VC and running a corporate venture shop. “Our job is not simply to do the investment and get a return,” he explained, while juking left and right a bit at his standing desk. “My lens is different, yeah? I invest in companies when I think that they can accelerate my technological roadmap.” 

Lombardi can focus less on returns because CNH has hauled in around $20 billion in revenue each of the last three years. That frees him up to think more strategically about who his team hands money to — something that other investors may not have the luxury of, especially as the funding market dried up.

On the M&A side, Lombardi says he likes to bring in people from all of CNH’s different organizations when evaluating a startup. It’s those employees who will tell him: “Yes, I like that technology team, I like their solution, I like the product, we think it will make a difference in our industry,” he says.

Lombardi says his team often goes beyond investment and M&A as it looks to supercharge CNH’s abilities. And he exploits the company’s global reach to track developments in all types of different markets. 

“We have a mapping of the existing startups at different maturity levels before any advisor would come to us and propose us anything, and we spontaneously reach out to entrepreneurs and chit chat with them, understand what they’re doing,” he said. “Often we build collaborative opportunities that don’t necessarily lead to an investment, but help the startup, help our industry around us develop with more confidence and it educates us.” 

Lombardi likes to look these entrepreneurs in the eye, so he prefers in-person or video calls when possible. Lombardi said he needs to look someone in the eye — and watch how they respond to questions — to determine whether he wants to work with that person.

“I learn a lot from that, more than from the speech,” he mused. “Entrepreneurs are very, very good at giving me the 10-minute speech. I’m not very interested in that. I mean, I can sell you anything. It’s not what I want. I’m not going to learn anything from that. I’m not going to understand if I can help.”

He added that it’s more important for him to see the person, how they react, if they open up and show their vulnerabilities. 

“And through that I then build that sense if I want to spend more time with that person or not,” he said. “I mean, super important. And there’s so many out there, right? So how do you select? I select out of the smarts I see and how ready they are to collaborate.”