Germany-based chemicals company Evonik Industries has invested €2.5m ($3m) in local seed investor High-Tech Gründerfonds’ (HTGF) second fund.
HTGF now has 13 corporate venturing units as limited partners in its funds, having closed its second fund at €291m last year.
Besides Evonik, the other corporate investors are: Altana, BASF, B. Braun, Robert Bosch, CEWE Color, Daimler, Deutsche Post DHL, Deutsche Telekom, Qiagen, RWE Innogy, Tengelmann and Carl Zeiss.
Alexander von Frankenberg, managing director of HTGF, said: "There is more to come. At least one more [corporate investor in our fund], probably two."
In January, Evonik set up its corporate venturing unit and last year invested €365m into research and development projects.
Separately, Maxwell Biotech Venture Fund (MBVF), founded with the participation of the Russian government-backed Russian Venture Company, made its first investment involving HTGF. MBVF invested in a newly-formed Russian biotech company, Hepatera, and a concurrent investment in the German biotech company MYR, a HTGF portfolio company.
Hepatera is going to use the funding to co-develop its first drug candidate, Myrcludex B, aimed at the treatment of chronic viral hepatitis B and D, in close partnership with MYR, which was founded in 2010 and holds the worldwide exclusive product rights for Myrcludex B.
Founded in September, Hepatera became a resident of the Biomedical Cluster at Skolkovo Innovation Center in December to develop and bring to the market innovative drugs for the prevention and treatment of liver diseases.
Yan Ryazantsev, director of investment and expertise department with Russian Venture Company, said: "Attracting the participation of the global venture capital market into Russia, promoting abroad the products and services of Russian venture industry participants and innovative companies, as well as forming a sustainable positive attitude in foreign markets towards Russian innovation companies – these are the three components of success for Russia’s venture business on a global scale."
Bernd Goergen, senior investment manager of the HTGF, added: "We are extremely excited about our first investment together with Russian venture capitalists."