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The Big News
The US government’s effort to change the regulatory landscape for venture capital is coming to a head with this week’s sold-out Global Corporate Venturing and Innovation Summit in California.
Investment banks could face more relaxed restrictions concerning investments in venture capital funds from the Federal Reserve and other watchdogs under proposals expected to be announced by the end of the month.
But as the US tightens its inward investment rules, its largest companies are expanding their venturing units internationally with Microsoft – the second largest by market capitalisation – setting up a new UK office in London under Matthew Goldstein, a GCV Rising Stars 2018 winner. For this year’s winners check outwww.globalcorporateventuring.com at 8pm PST today.
The top 100 Global Corporate Venturing Rising Stars and Emerging Leaders celebrated their awards at a gala ceremony at the Monterey Aquarium in California the night before the GCVI Summit started.
The winners were selected from almost 20,000 industry professionals tracked by Global Corporate Venturing and nominated by the heads of units and their peers.
In a keynote at the Summit, delivered as he became the new chairman of the GCV Leadership Society and in front of a sold-out audience of 800, Young Sohn, chief strategy officer at conglomerate Samsung, laid out the challenges he had faced changing the 50-year strategy that had helped the company become market leader in multiple industries as a fast follower, but which was having to evolve to maintain that position, while allowing it to remain agile enough to capture mega trends and new opportunities through multiple venturing and innovation strategies.
The second day of the Summit began with Kaloyan Andonov from GCV Analytics sharing insights gleaned from the World of Corporate Venturing annual data review and survey covering how the blurring of public and private capital markets is creating the investment trends for the new decade.
For the first time in 60 years the start of a western decade is coinciding with the start of the Chinese lunar cycle and the Year of the Rat: Happy new year to all the venture and innovation leaders in greater China and their work to support the entrepreneurs, and in making the world a better place.
Crossover Deals
Downturn? What downturn? – GUV’s annual review shows the ecosystem is in outstanding shape despite all the doom and gloom in many financial papers.
EPFL spinouts raise $292m – The university formed 23 new spinouts in 2019, while a total of 33 companies secured a combined $292m: an amount only beaten by 2016’s record $408m.
Deals
Although ride hailing and bicycle rental services are a long way from profit, that hasn’t dissuaded investors from backing the electric scooter and bike rental sector. Bird has boosted its series D round to $350m, adding $75m in a second tranche co-led by Sequoia Capital and CDPQ.
SoftBank Vision Fund is putting up $250m to lead a series D round for online pharmacy Alto that will reportedly value it at more than $1bn. The funding is set to be formally disclosed next week, and although no precise size has been revealed for the round, it will include existing backers Greenoaks Capital and Jackson Square Ventures, sources told Reuters. Alto had previously raised at least $107m in funding.
AlphaCredit is another of SoftBank’s investments last week, having agreed to raise $125m in a series B round led by the corporate’s $5bn Latin America fund. The company runs an online lending platform that has issued $1bn in loans to customers in Mexico and Colombia, and it joins a stable that includes LatAm unicorns QuintoAndar and Rappi.
Commonwealth Bank comes back to Klarna with $200m – The payment and shopping app developer has launched in Australia with the help of Commonwealth Bank of Australia, which raised its stake to 5.5%.
Policygenius pops with $100m series D – Corporate units Axa Venture Partners, MassMutual Ventures and Transamerica Ventures all returned for a round that nearly trebled the insurance marketplace’s overall funding.
ActiveCampaign has raised $100m in a series B round led by Susquehanna Growth Equity that is only the second to be announced by the company in 17 years. By coincidence, the deal was announced on the same day as another customer experience automation platform, Directly, but in this case it seems ActiveCampaign’s own greater experience was likely a deciding point in that size differential.
Funds
Innovation Growth Ventures, the joint investment venture between Sony and brokerage Daiwa Securities, has raised $145m for its second close, on the way to a targeted final close of $185m. The vehicle was launched six months ago and has so far disclosed two deals.
Conglomerate JSW Group is targeting $49m for the final close of the second fund to be raised by its corporate venture capital arm, JSW Ventures. The unit is sponsored by JSW but is taking in capital from family offices and individual investors, and is preparing to reach a second close next month that is expected to be around the $21m mark.
OCBC NISP gets authorisation for $29m fund – The bank has received regulatory approval for a venture capital fund that can be sized at more than $29m but which will reportedly begin with $15m.
Info Edge ventures into $14m fund – The classified listings operator, whose earlier investments include Zomato and ETechAces, has formed its first dedicated corporate venture capital fund.
“Funky Chunk” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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