Germany-based media company Bauer Media launched a corporate venturing fund called Bauer Venture Partners yesterday that will invest €100m ($134m) in European technology start-ups over the next decade.
Bauer has already begun investing, participating in a $6.7m round series A round raised by digital health company Lifesum in April. However, the establishment of a dedicated fund shows the company has more concrete plans for venture capital investment and follows the lead of German media rival Axel Springer, which already runs its own corporate venturing unit.
Bauer Venture Partners will be stage agnostic and stated on its website that it will aim to exit from its portfolio companies in four to seven years.
Thomas Preuss, the fund’s founder and managing partner, told technology news site TechCrunch that Bauer Venture Partners will mainly invest in software companies, with areas of particular interest including fintech, media, health and software-as-a-service.
The launch of the fund comes just weeks after internet company Google announced it was also committing $100m of funding to a new European office, and indicates that Europe is demonstrating increasing pull for corporate investors.