Funds China has just reportedly approved the establishment of a state-owned $30bn VC fund in Shenzhen. ONGC to drill into startups with $15m fund Uber and Digi to experiment with Malaysian ideation lab Cambridge Innovation Capital (CIC), a university venturing fund commercialises science and technology advances made at Cambridge University, has raised £75m ($90m). Prudential … Continue reading "22 August 2016 – Autonomous and Smart Car Investments, $30bn Fund in China and more"

People Friday was Bill Maris’s last day at GV, the corporate venturing unit he helped to set up for search engine Google in 2009. But it is a new start for David Krane, who is taking the CEO position at GV (formerly known as Google Ventures) and who will have a tough act to follow … Continue reading "15 August 2016 – VR and Food Delivery Investments, GV People Moves and more"

People Intel Capital has chosen Christine Herron and Trina Van Pelt to manage its $125m Intel Capital Diversity Fund. A former startup CEO, Herron joined Intel Capital in 2010 after a combined five years as a venture investor at First Round Capital and Omidyar Network. Funds Rozenfeld’s new firm targets $30m fund Alibaba Pictures is … Continue reading "01 August 2016 – Asian Funds, MyTaxi hails Hailo, University Record Breaking and more"

Covering the week’s venturing news including funding, investments, exits and people moves. “Funky Chunk” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Investments Unity, which is the game engine that helped build Pokémon Go, raised $181m in its series C round led by DFJ Growth and including China Investment Corporation – the sovereign wealth fund of the People’s Republic. A $45m investment for iCarbonX whose shareholders include internet company Tencent, which led a $154m series A round … Continue reading "18 July 2016 – The Power Behind Pokémon Go raises $181m plus more"

People Rich Miner helped to launch Google Ventures in 2009 as general partner but seven years later, he’s dropped down to a venture partner position so he can concentrate on a secretive edtech project within the Google organisation. Microsoft Ventures continues to build up its team, the latest recruit being Matthew Goldstein who comes from VC firm Trinity Ventures … Continue reading "11 July 2016 – Microsoft Venturing Fund, Exits for Multiple Companies and Investment News plus more"

News and Deals Corporate On GlobalCorporateVenturing.com, the week’s biggest news was the downfall of Zenefits, a US-based HR software provider that closed a $500m series C round backed by Comcast in May 2015. Not only has the company struggled to deliver on the predicted revenue, but it’s also run into serious regulatory issues. Zenefits might … Continue reading "04 July 2016 – Crispr investment, Siemens fund and more Intel Capital people moves plus more"

Deals Corporate While not technically new, we have more information on the massive $7.3bn round for Didi Chuxing that we talked about on last Monday’s podcast. Poly Group, a Chinese state-owned real estate and trading business, contributed a whopping $400m in return for a 1.45% stake. HR Bio Holdings, a joint venture between pharmaceutical company Jiangsu … Continue reading "27 June 2016 – Blade Therapeutics, Kellogg, and IPOs for Twilio and Selecta Biosciences and more"

Didi Chuxing, the ride-sharing app developer that’s been causing a headache to Uber, has raised the largest venture round of all time with $7.3bn in combined equity and debt financing. Verto Analytics in a $16.1m series B round from Finnish Industry Investment and also featured EQT Ventures, a private equity firm that closed a government-backed … Continue reading "20 June 2016 – Post-lean interview with Frode Odegard, Didi Chuxing, FII, Rgenix, Imperial Innovations and more"

Cisco is in the news for not so positive reasons following the walkout of its spin-in team. Exits Line, the messaging platform, wholly-owned by Naver, is aiming for $1bn in proceeds at a valuation of $5.5bn Thailand-based back-office services provider Netbay is aiming for a $4.5m flotation on the domestic stock exchange. Singapore Press Holdings … Continue reading "13 June 2016 – Cisco shakeup, Line flotation, Oxford ISIS rebranding and more."