Anand Kamannavar: Applied Ventures

Technology can only get as advanced as the materials that make it up, and things are moving fast.

Anand Kamannavar is the global head of Applied Ventures, the CVC unit of advanced materials engineering company Applied Materials, investing in a wide range of technologies including energy, advanced materials and manufacturing, semiconductors, life sciences, AI and big data and more.

In this episode, he touches on the challenges involved with managing a considerable global portfolio when the whole team is based in California, how Applied Ventures seeks to enable the pushing of the envelope on Moore’s Law – the principle essentially stating that semiconductors double in complexity every few years – and how having been in the game for so long has helped the unit see ahead of the curve.

He also talks about the benefits of having had a stable, long-term and supportive relationship with the parent company, how investing in public companies can be a good play for a CVC, and how the similarities between VCs and CVCs are much bigger than the differences, particularly with the smaller VCs that are more specialised.


“Funky Chunk” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Leadership Series: Jaclyn Kossmann (Applied Ventures)

We have teamed up with 500 Startups’ CVC Insider Series, where top CVC practitioners offer advice and best practices regarding common challenges encountered within corporate venturing. Featured this week is an interview with Jaclyn Kossmann of Applied Ventures and Nicolas Sauvage of TDK Ventures.


“Funky Chunk” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

26 November 2018 – Coupang Gains Second SoftBank Investment

Deals

SoftBank invested $1bn in online marketplace Coupang three years ago, and has returned to provide another $2bn in funding through its Vision Fund at a $9bn valuation. South Korea-based Coupang expects to generate about $5bn in revenue this year and will use the funding to upgrade its end-to-end fulfilment system and add new features to its platform.

It looks like a busy week for SoftBank, as the Coupang agreement was disclosed shortly before news that SoftBank has reportedly also led a $1bn round for another Asian e-commerce platform, Indonesia’s Tokopedia, this time at a $7bn valuation.

Walmart completed its $16bn acquisition of a 77% stake in Indian e-commerce platform Flipkart in August, and it has now reportedly increased that stake to 81.3%.

Leap Motor has become the latest Chinese smart electric car startup to raise big money, taking in $288m through a series A round co-led by corporates Shanghai Electric and CRRC Corporation.

Visa has invested $200m in Billdesk and bought between $80m and $100m in secondary shares, in a deal that reportedly valued the Indian bill payment platform at $1.8bn.

Golden Education, a China-based provider of professional trading for members of the financial services industry, has raised $115m in a series C round that was co-led by investment bank Morgan Stanley and Hillhouse Capital.

Xiaoqule launched its community-based e-commerce platform in August and is so far present in 30 Chinese cities. It has also secured $108m in series A funding from investors including Ping An Ventures and SIG Asia.

On Global University Venturing, OMass Therapeutics, a UK-based biopharmaceutical spinout of University of Oxford, closed $17.9m series A round featuring university venture fund Oxford Sciences Innovation and Syncona, which led the round.

On Global Government Venturing, Geek+, a China-based developer of artificial intelligence and robotics services, has raised $150m in a series B round backed by Vertex Ventures, the venture capital arm of Singaporean state-owned investment firm Temasek.

Funds

Applied Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of semiconductor producer Applied Materials, has teamed up with New York State’s Empire State Development vehicle in a drive to invest in companies based in upstate New York.

Japanese telecommunications company NTT has closed its newly formed Silicon Valley VC fund, NTT Venture Capital, at $500m.

On Global University Venturing, Chinese Academy of Sciences and financial services holding company Guangzhou Finance Holdings have launched a $43.2m fund partly focused on commercialising the academy’s research.

Exits

Rocket Internet has had several of its e-commerce entities go public in recent years, and the latest looks likely to be Global Fashion Group, the entity that operates five online fashion retailers in different territories.

Autodesk has agreed to acquire construction management software provider PlanGrid for $875m in an all-cash deal that will provide healthy exits for Alphabet’s CapitalG unit as well as Box. PlanGrid had raised less than $70m and both the corporates invested at seed stage.

Babytree is meanwhile set to raise $217m in its own IPO, in Hong Kong. The China-based media and e-commerce platform will be valued at $1.5bn, a drop of around 30% from June when Alibaba subsidiary Taobao invested a reported $214m.

Online travel services provider Tongcheng-eLong has floated in Hong Kong, in a $180m initial public offering that represents a downturn from the reported $1bn target the company initially set as well as the $233m target it put up earlier this month.

Vegan meat substitute developer Beyond Meat has filed for a $100m initial public offering that would enable Tyson New Ventures and the General Mills-owned 301 Ventures to exit.

On Global University Venturing, Synthorx, a US-based immuno-oncology drug spinout of Scripps Research Institute, has filed for a $100m initial public offering on the Nasdaq Global Market.


“Funky Chunk” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

03 July 2017 – The Political Environment and Investment

Funds

Cloudflare, an internet technology provider with its own security products, has launched its own $100m fund.

Cybersecurity technology producer Trend Micro has inserted an initial $100m into a newly formed corporate venturing unit that will target disruptive sectors such as the internet-of-things, which its parent company believes will be the next technology mega wave.

Corporates boost Cathay Innovation fund to $320m

Capnamic Ventures, a VC firm that focuses on startups in German speaking regions, has reached the final close of its latest fund, having raised $130m. The fund’s limited partners include Cisco, which announced a $500m German investment drive early last year, as well as AXA Germany, Rheinische Post Media Group and Sparkassen Group.

Applied Ventures joins KVIC for $40m Korea fund

University

Technion institutes $200m fund

Imec expands with $136m fund

Government

BioGeneration begets $75m fund

Horizon approaches $150m fund

Exits

ProSiebenSat.1 sells media-for-equity assets

Online insurance provider ZhongAn has reportedly filed for a $1.5bn IPO in Hong Kong that will allow the company’s co-founders Ping An, Tencent and Alibaba affiliate Ant Financial to exit.

Best Inc, one of several logistics and supply chain services providers to have sprung up in the wake of China’s e-commerce boom, has filed for a $750m IPO in the US.

Takeda subsidiary Millennium Pharmaceuticals and Pfizer have both scored exits in a $75m IPO by Mersana Therapeutics, a developer of antibody drug conjugates that will fight cancer.

Deals

Alibaba paid $1bn for a majority stake in Southeast Asian e-commerce marketplace Lazada last year, and now it’s pumped in another $1bn to take its stake to 83%, giving full exits to backers including Tesco and Rocket Internet, both of which also sold shares in the 2016 deal.

Sources confirmed to Bloomberg over the weekend that Houzz, the Comcast-backed operator of a social image platform for house decoration ideas, has closed a $400m round that valued it at $4bn.

Dynamic glass developer View has doubled its series G round to $200m, $70m of the money coming from BlackRock.

Siemens has joined the participants in electric vehicle charging network ChargePoint’s series G round, which has now closed at $125m.

Naspers reveals $71m Flipkart investment

Brazilian mobile commerce platform Movile has raised $53m in a round that included longtime investor Naspers, which had put up a big part of the $135m the company had raised between 2014 and 2016.

GPU-equipped database developer Kinetica has secured $50m in funding from investors including Citi Ventures, taking its equity financing to $63m in a little over a year.

Government

IDS diagnoses $60m investment

University

Diffblue enters series A spectrum


“Funky Chunk” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0