DTCP, the investment arm of Germany-based telecommunications firm Deutsche Telekom formerly known as Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners, secured external investors for a $350m fund it announced today.
The corporate launched the first fund in 2014 as a successor to T-Venture, its corporate venture capital arm since 1998, supplying $140m to take the total provided by Deutsche Telekom across various funds to $620m at the time.
South Korea-based telecoms firm SK Telecom and optical systems producer Zeiss are limited partners in the new fund, as are private equity firm HarbourVest Partners and investment manager Neuberger Berman.
The new fund will invest at growth stage, providing $5m to $50m in funding to enterprise software developers operating in areas like 5G technology, the internet of things, cloud and network infrastructure, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and marketing. It will also back other funds.
DTCP has a total of $1.7bn under management as of the second fund’s close and plans to shortly open an office in the city of Seoul where SK Telecom is headquartered. It said it has already participated in five deals through the second fund.
Vicente Vento, DTCP’s co-founder and CEO, said: “This is an important milestone in DTCP’s development from a single LP into a multi LP technology investment platform.
“Our first venture and growth fund’s track record since inception in 2015 has helped us attract top-tier corporate and financial investors, and we are delighted to welcome our new partners.
“The larger-sized fund will enable us to increase our involvement with top-tier deep-tech software companies in our investment scope, and the new collaboration with SK Telecom will allow us to expand our geographic reach into Asia.”
The unit’s recent investments include it leading a $40m round for content delivery software provider Fastly in July 2018, 10 months before the company went public, and backing a $60m series C round for cybersecurity platform developer Guardicore last month.
