Intel was the most active company by number of deals in the first quarter, with 35 transactions involving its corporate venturing unit Intel Capital. Alibaba was the most active in terms of the value of deals in which it was involved, taking part in rounds that raised a total of $1.965bn for its portfolio companies.
The totals Global Corporate Venturing normally publishes relate to the entire value of the rounds in which corporates take part, as there is limited transparency on the equity they are actually investing. Intel Capital disclosed it had invested $69m, for example, but disclosure of dollars invested is limited.
The largest investment in the quarter was US-based car sharing company Uber raising $1bn. Uber is backed by corporate venturers Baidu and Google Ventures.
Corporate venturing deals in the first quarter involved significant levels of investment. Global Corporate Venturing tracked 566 investments worth a total of $21.4bn in the first quarter, compared with 604 investments worth $14.8bn in the fourth quarter.
Asia is taking an increasing share of this activity, with 138 transactions worth $7.3bn, which means in the past two quarters the continent has contributed a third of the value of deals in which corporates were active. The share of activity involving North American deals amounted to 53% of the global value – significantly lower than the continent’s typical two-thirds market share.
The boom in investment dollars being raised is in large part due to greater amounts being deployed at the late stage. The value of dollars at E round surged 144% over the previous quarter, with no other round type rising by triple-digit percentages. Stake purchases and D rounds, which are also typically larger deals, rose by 62.6% and 41.4% respectively. C rounds were up by 28.3% and A rounds by 19.4%. The value raised by B rounds and seed rounds declined.
Rising investment was also driven by a surge of activity in the services (118.6%), consumer (115.3%) and transport (110.4%) sectors.
Editor-in-chief James Mawson will be discussing the data in his opening speech at our Global Corporate Venturing Symposium on June 2 and 3.
Note: Our deal data tracks activity by company, as some companies, such as Google, have multiple corporate venturing units.
