More corporate venturing units have been launched so far this year in the media sector than in the whole of last year, which was itself a record.
So far this year there have been 15 new funds or corporate venturing programmes started in the media industry compared to 13 last year, according to research by Global Corporate Venturing. Overall, 111 corporate venturing programmes have been started in the past 18 months, according to Global Corporate Venturing’s unique data.
The largest fund in the sector has been China-based media conglomerate Tencent’s RMB10bn ($1.5bn) Industrial Collaboration Fund started in January.
Tencent has already invested about a fifth of the fund on minority and majority equity investments in the first eight months. (For a profile of the company and the fund please see related content and this month’s Global Corporate Venturing magazine).
Tencent was ranked eighth in the Global Corporate Venturing list of most influential corporate venturing units with a media parent. Tencent’s own corporate venturing backer, South Africa-based Naspers, retained top spot in the Global Corporate Venturing ranking having generated about $13bn from its minority holding in Tencent over the past decade.
The corporate venturing interest in the media sector has been primarily focused on mobile services, social media platforms and applications and online games.
For a full list of the most influential groups and their ranking, please click here.