Jean-Marc Bally has worked in corporate venturing as managing director at Aster Capital and the corporate venturing unit it from which it spun out, Schneider Electric Ventures, since 2000.
Aster became independent of France-based industrial group Schneider Electric in 2010, and is backed by two other corporate backers, equipment provider Alstom and chemical company Solvay Rhodia. The company is also set to reveal an undisclosed European financial institution as its next investor, Bally said.
Bally, whose deals include SolaireDirect, Tronics, ConnectBlue, Jet Metal Technologies, Optiréno and Lucibel, said: “Why did we go for a multi-corporate fund? It was a reaction against the difficulties some VCs and some start-ups were perceiving with a mono-corporate venture fund. The idea was not to do things differently from before but to do it better. We have a close relationship with each of the corporates in the fund.
Lessons from the top: Bally advises venture units representing corporates to understand the different needs they have to standard venture funds. He said: “The main part is to align ourselves with our investors, doing it the proper way on top of doing a venture activity and align the interests of the corporates to the management company. Our four partners were from corporates while the rest of the team is not mainly from corporates. Normal VCs might have a difficulty doing this, yet a corporate needs a way to be connected. Teaming up three corporates and one financial institution like that is helping them much more than doing it on their own.”