Global Corporate Venturing’s top stories in 2019
Month: December 2019
Amatil X sets up early-stage fund with Artesian
Coca-Cola Amatil has partnered Artesian Venture Partners to form a multimillion-dollar investment fund that will target early-stage companies.
Rivian revs up with $1.3bn
Returning investors Ford and Amazon contributed to a round that boosted the electric vehicle developer’s funding to more than $2.8bn in 2019 alone.
DraftKings drives itself to public listing
The Fox Sports and Kraft Group-backed fantasy sports contest operator has gone public through a reverse merger, forming a $3.3bn company that will include betting technology producer SBTech.
ATU Partners presses start with $17m
Corporate backers Kakao Games and E&M are among the limited partners for newly launched esports-focused private equity fund ATU Partners.
Qdama quickens to $143m series D
The community grocery retailer raised about $143m in a Taikang Life-backed series D round that will be used for the expansion of its warehousing and product range.
Geneseeq generates $114m series D
Lilly Asia Ventures and SBCVC both invested in the cancer diagnostics technology developer as part of a round that will fund research and development and strategic partnerships.
Asada leaves NTT Docomo for Salesforce
Ken Asada will join Salesforce Ventures after the holiday period, having spent less than a year at NTT Docomo Ventures following his time at Intel Capital.
Corporate Venturing in 2019: The roundup
SoftBank and WeWork cast the biggest shadow, but the year saw a raft of huge corporate-backed IPOs while fintech and Latin America each had a big 12 months.
Xiaoe-tech takes Tal Education investment
The education services management platform secured $14.3m in a round led by Tal Education that reportedly valued it at more than $140m.
SkySpecs checks in $17m
Evergy Ventures, Equinor Energy Ventures and existing investors Statkraft Ventures and UL Ventures chipped in as the wind power maintenance platform developer took its total funding to $29m.
SoftBank Ventures Asia scales latest fund to $341m
The unit’s Growth Acceleration Fund has reached a second close with contributions from Korea Venture Investment Corp and South Korea’s National Pension Service.
F5 finds Shape in $1bn acquisition
Alphabet, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, JetBlue and SingTel are exiting the cybersecurity software producer in a $1bn purchase.
Ripple wraps up $200m series C
SBI returned for a round that increased the valuation of the blockchain-focused money transfer platform to $10bn from a reported $355m three years ago.