Alcatel-Lucent, a US-based telecom equipments maker, is understood to have shut its corporate venturing unit.
Alcatel-Lucent Ventures had focused on internal incubation of ideas within the company’s Bell Labs after spinning off its external equity investments to venture capital firm New Venture Partners in 2002.
A source inside Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) said the Ventures unit had been closed earlier this year and Bart Shigemura, vice-president of Alcatel-Lucent Ventures, had left. A source source inside the company confirmed: “The internal ventures (those initiative[s] that came out of Bell Labs and other parts of ALU) have been absorbed into the relevant business units. External investments will be monitored by corporate.”
Shigemura and Alcatel-Lucent were unavailable but the company’s website said he “manages an internal incubator of portfolio ventures that enable the company to enter profitable new markets with agility”.
The other named member of the team, Sudhir (Sid) Ahuja, Alcatel-Lucent Ventures’ joint ventures vice-president, is also still listed on the company’s website and active in the company according to his LinedIn business network profile. An internal source said he was still involved with his joint ventures initiative between ALU/Bell Labs and the University of Pittsburg Medical Center.
Last year, Alcatel-Lucent hired Max Straube as a vice-president of its corporate venturing unit ahead of making its first deal since effectively relaunching the team late last year.
Straube has subsequently moved over to looking after the company’s intellectual property strategy, according to his LinkedIn page.