Anglo-Dutch group Unilever, which passed €50bn ($65bn) in revenues last year, continues its commitment to corporate venturing as it sharpens the unit’s sector focus and tightens its advisory links to the parent.
The corporate venturing unit of Anglo-Dutch consumer goods company Unilever has made plans to increase its assets under management with its latest $450m fund from its parent, it has emerged.
The 11-year-old Unilever Ventures unit agreed the funds at the end of last year, and has already sealed its first deal, although it is yet to be disclosed.
Martin Grieve, global managing director of Unilever Ventures, said: “The fact Unilever is committing to our third fund is recognition we can continue delivering financial and strategic benefits for Unilever.” Grieve declined to comment on the group’s financial returns to date.
Grieve added the group had focused on four sectors – personal care, refreshment, digital marketing and sustainable business. He said: “Looking at our current portfolio, we have investments in each of these four areas. What this does is clarify the areas we are most interested in. This is not to say we have radically changed focus. We are actively hunting for deals which can receive significant added value from Unilever.”
He added: “We will have an advisory board for each of these four sectors, so we are in touch with the key stakeholders within Unilever. This is something new we are setting up alongside fund III so we continue to be aligned with what Unilever wants and engage on individual portfolio companies and what we are seeing that is new from an external Unilever Ventures perspective. We are hoping this will be quite instrumental in shaping the sector focus of areas as we move through the fund.”
The sector split will result in the corporate venturing unit backing start-ups in two core sectors of its parent, which owns more than 400 brands, such as health and beauty brand Dove and ice creams Magnum and Ben & Jerry’s, through its focus on personal care and refreshment.
Grieve said the unit was backing the other two sectors, because of the group’s wider plans. He said: “We are investing in digital marketing because of the trend away from classic television advertising to multiple means of digital communication. We are one of the biggest advertisers globally as is well documented. We are looking at, for example, mobile opportunities and new engagement models of how you speak to the consumer as a shopper. There are thousands of opportunities out there.”
He said Unilever’s sustainable business investments were related to the group’s sustainable living plan, whereby Unilever plans by 2020 to help more than 1 billion people to improve their health and well-being, halve the environmental footprint of its products, source all its agricultural raw materials sustainably and enhance people’s livelihoods.
Grieve said: “The priorities here are in two parts. On one side it is about the supply chain cost efficiency, improving manufacturing facilities and the materials we use. It is also about sustainable living – how do we have a greater social impact in areas like sanitation, water and hygiene, how do we change consumer behaviour to make it more sustainable?”
The unit has offices in London, San Francisco andMumbai through which it invests in Europe, North America and Asia, where it is focused on south Asia initially.
Grieve instigated the corporate venturing unit’s expansion into south Asia in 2010, after moving from within Unilever to lead the group in 2009.
He added: “We are adding to our teams in North America and Asia, looking to progressively recruit the right people. It is really important to have local teams on the ground in key geographies.” He said the company had a larger European team, reflecting its bigger portfolio there.
“We always target both our strategic and financial goals. For this reason we have the global investment committee to approve all deals. We have to tick those two boxes of strategic relevance and a financial return.”
Grieve said the group would continue involvement with third-party funds, with it presently backing venture and private equity firms Physic Ventures, Langholm Capital, Catterton, Capvent and Ambit Pragma.
He added: “Independent funds have always been part of the strategy. We back a small number of sector-focused funds and have key relationships with them. They bring complementary capabilities for priority sectors we look to invest in. What we are doing is expanding the team to do direct investing and increasing the strategic benefit down these four sector lines.”