Nestlé, a Switzerland-based food and beverage manufacturing conglomerate, intends to create its own corporate venture capital fund by the end of this year, Startups reported on Tuesday.
The unnamed vehicle will help the corporate further expand its operations in the innovation ecosystem but details on fund size or the number of startups it plans to back remain undisclosed.
During the inauguration of Panela House, Nestlé’s newly formed open innovation space headquartered in São Paulo, Brazil, Nestlé head of innovation and new business Renate Giometti told Startups: “Having our own investment fund makes perfect sense with our focus on the ESG agenda and with the vision of co-creating the regenerative food ecosystem of the future.” (Translated from Portuguese by Global Venturing.)
Panela House, which will be launched in September, can host more than 70 startups daily in various spaces catering to initiatives including co-working, hackathons and meetups. Nestlé has connected with 1,800 companies and developed 150 pilots through the Panela scheme since its launch in July 2021.
The proposed CVC unit represents Nestlé’s many strategic moves, one of the latest being its $5.7m contribution in January this year to Eureka Fund, a tech transfer vehicle for Italy-based venture capital firm Eureka Venture.
In 2000, Nestlé formed a VC fund called Inventages to target life sciences and nutrition technology companies. Women-focused pharmaceutical developer GC-Rise Pharma and Immbio, which distributes vaccines targeting infectious diseases, were among the firm‘s portfolio companies.
Nestlé’s direct investments include Singapore-headquartered neurotherapeutics developer Cecerin and ProciseDx, a US-based developer of in vitro diagnostics technology, the latter through the corporate’s Nestlé Heath Science subsidiary.
Images courtesy of Nestlé.