After a rush of announced deals in January to meet the end of 2010 deadlines, February was a quieter month for corporate venturing.
There were 72 new rounds of funding and 12 exits through trade sales or flotations, according to Global Corporate Venturing (click for table).
The investments were worth at least $1bn, although 19 deals had undisclosed valuations.
Information technology was the primary sector of interest for corporate venturing with 28 deals, followed by healthcare with 17 and media with 13.
Intel Capital, the corporate venturing unit of semiconductor company Intel, was again the most active, added-value investor with more than six deals and a promise to invest more in one country, India, this year than many venture capital firms will do round the world.
Among the investments were big deals in Softbank Corp’s backing of China media group Synacast for $250m, a consortium including Wellcome Trust backing debt group Wonga with $120m and clean-tech Bright Source raised $90m for a planned $100m round.
Of the exits, China-based Tencent picked up its portfolio company riot Games for $400m, Amgen Ventures sold Calistoga Pharmaceuticals for at least $375m and Vodafone Ventures sold PlaySpan to credit card company Visa for $190m.
There were also two flotations, or initial public offerings, for healthcare companies Gevo and AcelRx to raise nearly $200m.
Law firm Fenwick & West said there was a strong end to 2010 in terms of pricing venture investments as 67% of the 95 companies based in US state California’s Silicon Valley it followed were marked higher compared with 21% marked lower. The remaining 12% had flat valuations in these final three months of the year.
In the third quarter Fenwick (click for report) said up rounds exceeded down rounds 52% to 30%, with 18% of rounds flat and was the sixth quarter in a row in which up rounds exceeded down rounds.