Media companies Disney and International Data Group (IDG) are considering expanding their venture operations into Europe.
John Ball, founder and a managing director at Disney’s Steamboat Ventures, said he was considering opening an office in Europe following the firm’s success in Asia.
Steamboat raised a $150m fund in China in 2006 and has $600m under management.
Patrick McGovern, founder and chairman of IDG, said it was considering expanding its IDG Ventures unit in eastern Europe and/or Brazil. IDG usually selects and hires a team to act as general partner of a regional fund. The firm had previously opened in western Europe in 2000 before closing a few years later. Its Boston-based team became independent and renamed itself Flybridge Capital Partners in 2008. Both teams had performed well but had relatively worse returns than their Asian peers, IDG Capital Partners.
The interest in Europe follows the plans of a number of European venture units to expand their operations into emerging markets in Asia and/or Latin America, several heads of firms said.
The top two most influential corporate venturing units in the media sector, Naspers and IDG, have spent nearly two decades investing more than $1bn in companies in these markets.
IDG Capital Partners has had a gross 40% annual rate of return since its launch in 1993 and first investment a year later with its first two funds returning more than five times the amount invested, according to Hugo Shong, president of IDG Asia and previously the first managing partner of its China operation.