US-based gaming hardware and accessories producer Razer is establishing a corporate venturing unit that will be launched in 2016, CEO and co-founder Min-Liang Tan told TechCrunch today.
Founded in 1998, Razer manufactures gaming hardware such as controllers and keyboards, and latterly, tablets and laptops. It raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Intel in October 2014 at a valuation about $1bn.
The unit will operate as an incubator-like vehicle that will enable startups to leverage Razer’s expertise and business partners, which include Intel and internet company Tencent, with which Razer collaborated on a wearable smart band called Nabu.
Tan said: “The plan is really to find strategic companies that we can help and [that can] leverage off of our profile. We are really globally covered… and can pretty much [assist them] before they even more into a new geographies or jurisdictions.
“We can [tell portfolio companies that] this is what we learned in this jurisdiction. For example, here’s our European sales manager and they can talk to him.
“He is not going to help you do your work, but he is sure as hell going to take you 70% of the way there by telling you what the pitfalls are. We have got people on the ground who have been doing the exact same work [for years].”
Tan did not disclose details of the capital that will be available to the fund or what sectors it will seek to target.