Nokia Growth Partners (NGP), the corporate venturing unit of the eponymous Finland-based phone maker, has raised $250m for its third fund and recruited two people.
Bo Ilsoe, a Nokia Growth Partners managing partner, said: “On the exit front we have had a pretty good run in the last eighteen months. We have returned quite a bit of capital to Nokia. We have a proven model, which is working, that also led to the new commitment.” Our e-zine editorial out on Sunday will be on the Nokia fund and the extended interview with Ilsoe.
John Gardner (pictured), managing partner of NGP and a member of the Global Corporate Venturing Powerlist 100, said: “What sets NGP apart from pure financial investors are the partnerships and insights our invested companies get from their close association with Nokia. In the past year, NGP has also realized several successful exits, including the IPOs of Morpho and Inside Secure and sales of Swype [for $102.5m to Nuance], Summit Microelectronics [to Qualcomm] and Netmagic [to NTT].
NGP through its second fund owned 7.05% of Morpho ahead of its listing in Japan in July 2011, while Inside Secure raised €69m at a market capitalisation of €261m in its flotation in February last year on the Paris stock exchange and then set up a strategic partnership for Nokia’s Lumia phone in April.
Its most recent deals include Vizury Interactive, which raised $9m in its series B round led by NGP in November, while India-based portfolio company Fashion and You acquired Urban Touch for $30m in August.
Timo Ihamuotila, Nokia chief financial officer, added: “Our ongoing commitment to Nokia Growth Partners reinforces Nokia’s support for a vibrant mobile ecosystem and our determination to collaborate with industry innovators to build great mobile products.”
After Nokia’s commitment, NGP, which was founded in 2005 and now manages $600m, said it would “continue to invest in high potential businesses within the mobile ecosystem in the US, Europe and Asia”.
David Tang, formerly president of Greater China at New York-listed chip maker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), joined NGP as a managing director having previously worked for Nokia as vice-chairman of China until January 2011, while Lu Guo, previously with Keytone Ventures as a vice-president responsible for mobile and internet investments, has been recruited as a principal.
NGP remains as Nokia’s only corporate venturing unit after Nokia Venture Partners spun out as an independent firm, BlueRun Ventures, in 2005 with Nokia as a limited partner in its 2008-vintage $200m fund.
BlueRun has just seen its US-based portfolio company Payvment close its social commerce platform for Facebook and an affiliated shopping site Lish.com and have Intuit buy out some of its employees. BlueRun has also exited Foodspotting to Nasdaq-listed OpenTable for $10m.
Additonal reporting by Toby Lewis.