The boom in corporate venturing interest in recent years is seeing a rush of interesting companies into venture investing. Global Corporate Venturing will look to catch up with the influencers of some of the most notable new entrants on a regular basis.
We spoke to Mark Toon, who is chief executive of KPMG Capital, the recently formed corporate venturing unit of the Anglo-Dutch accountancy firm which was launched in November, who said: “We are thinking about clients and how to get better, faster, cheaper and more innovative solutions into their hands.
Toon was one of the founders and chief executive of outsourcing advisory firm EquaTerra, which was bought by KPMG in 2011.
Toon says the unit has a sweet spot of $1m to $20m per investment, and said he could not disclose the unit’s funds under management, but added a $100m fund size widely reported in the press, was “a falsely reported statement”.
The unit is focused on data and analytics. Toon said the unit has “Resources all around the world”, and can “leverage” 4000 professionals working in data and analytics-related services at the firm.
He added the unit’s shareholders are the various different KPMG member firms around the world.
He said the launch of the unit, is already starting to show benefits for KPMG. He said: “From our perspective, at least some of these companies would not be on our radar.”