US-based networking equipment producer Cisco is establishing a venture capital fund that will be independently run, Bloomberg has reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
Cisco has so far made corporate venturing investments through a unit, Cisco Investments, that was founded in 1993 and funded from its parent company’s balance sheet.
However, the corporate will be the anchor investor in the new fund, which will be sized in the “hundreds of millions of dollars” range and which will focus on enterprise software deals, the sources said. It will concentrate on seed and early-stage investments.
Jon Sakoda has come over from VC firm New Enterprise Associates to run the fund, according to the Wall Street Journal. He joined NEA in 2012 and was a general partner focusing on the consumer internet and enterprise software sectors.
Cisco’s past corporate venturing deals include investments in virtualisation technology provider VMWare, which was acquired by EMC for $635m, and wireless chipset maker Wilocity, which Qualcomm bought for $300m.