As international music audiences enjoy the rise of Afrobeats, Sony Ventures is looking at whether African music, film, games and animation offer investment opportunities.
Category: Features
Mars Companion Fund to take bigger bets on petcare startups
Ben Jacobs of Companion Fund, flush with $300m from Mars, is going against the grain and betting bigger on startups as others pull back.
The Big Deal: Australia’s Employment Hero plans global growth after $1bn valuation
HR software provider Employment Hero has scored a unicorn valuation as it looks to strengthen its international presence – and Seek could have the ideal CVC profile to help.
CVC Unplugged: How to combine multiple investment strategies in one fund
MSW Capital’s Richard Zeiger joins the pod to talk about its multi-corporate LP approach and why it rejects the CVC-as-a-service label.
Functional foods start to get the science and the investment case right
Science-based evidence of health benefits, access to customer data and an influx of investment are behind the growth in functional foods.
CVC Unplugged: Deep tech startups should focus more on real-world problems
Owen Thompson, of venture builder Cambridge Future Tech, talks about how researchers need to focus not just on complex technical challenges but on solving real-world problems.
Turkey: Can CVC remove the funding roadblocks for startups?
Turkey has the ingredients to be a top tech market, but it needs investors to take more risk if its startups are to get past early stage.
Reality check: Has the IRA made the US a magnet for cleantech investment?
The US’s $369bn climate legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), promises to put the US at the forefront of the clean energy transition, but the act has its limitations.
Corporate-backed rounds take lion’s share of startup investments in Brazil
The CVC sector’s reputation is improving after a rocky start in Latin America’s largest economy.
CRH Ventures homes in on water tech to transform construction industry
The one-year-old $250m fund recently launched an accelerator to focus on early-stage companies that increase the efficiency of water in construction.
9 startups that could change how we look at water
From technology that studies cosmic rays to measure soil moisture to a system that can turn air into water, we look at the most promising new startups in the water tech sector.
The agritech party is over, Syngenta’s CVC arm is surveying the damage
Agriculture is suffering a hangover from the frothy market of two years ago but is moving towards a new, more stable equilibrium, Shubhang Shankar of Syngenta Group Ventures tells us.
CVC Unplugged: JLR’s more strategic CVC is perfect for a company insider
Mike Smeed, managing director of InMotion Ventures, joins the show to talk about how the Jaguar LandRover’s venturing unit is changing direction to bring more strategic value to the parent.
Why Brazil’s Gerdau chose to take back its CVC
It is difficult for third-party firms with multiple clients to gain a good understanding of any single company, says head of CVC of Brazilian steelmaker Gerdau.