The integration of media corporate venturing fund Peacock with Comcast Ventures, after the merger of General Electric’s NBCUniversal broadcasting division and Comcast, has resulted in a number of senior executives leaving Peacock, including Brian Keil and William Pescatello.
Pescatello has subsequently joined Lightbank Ventures, a venture capital firm sponsored by the founders of coupon provider Groupon, and teamed up with another Peacock alumnus, Paul Lee, after his stint at Playboy’s corporate venturing unit.
US-based technology publisher International Data Group’s regional corporate venturing units have also seen changes after fundraising. IDG Ventures hired Alexandre Quirci as a venture partner in Europe, a move expected after IDG founder and chairman Pat McGovern said in an interview last year it was looking to set up in the region.
In Asia, IDG’s teams have seen a number of moves, with Michelle Ma, Justin Niu and Bin Yue joining the China franchise and Duk-Hwan Oh, a managing partner in South Korea, leaving ahead of its second fundraising to become a self-proclaimed "investpreneur" at Oh&Associates in San Francisco.
Jimmy Park and Simon Kim have also left IDG Ventures Korea, leaving KI Park, Matthew Lee, JH Kim and BS Kim as partners and two more expected to join after the local fund hits its first close.
In Germany, Byung-Jun Park left DuMont Ventures for a role as senior manager of group strategy, strategic partnering and business development at local phone operator Deutsche Telekom.
And, following Germany-based media group Hubert Burda’s successful spin-out of its venturing team to form Acton Capital Partners in 2008, local peer Holtzbrinck Ventures followed suit as part of raising a new fund.
Other media teams are also understood to be examining how or whether to take in external limited partners beyond their founding parent or spin off altogether.
But there remains an undimmed appetite among media firmsto sponsor venturing units, with Bertelsmann considering a corporate fund of as much as $100m in Brazil and another in India, and Russia-based Mail.ru and Yandex also understood to be examining whether to set up funds after the successful experiences of their own corporate venturing backers.
With the creation of so many venturing funds in the past 18 months, a number of new posts have been created, including satellite broadcaster BSkyB setting up an emerging products team for its planned Sky Anywhere service under Brian Lenz and Emma Lloyd, Andrew Siegel becoming senior vice-president of strategy and corporate development at Advance Publications and Li Shanyou leaving Ku6 to join China-based games company Shanda’s Fund19 backing developers for the Android operating system.
Android’s success as an open-source operating system for mobile devices has encouraged groups, such as Gree, to collaborate with Asian peers in a $100m A-Fund managed by independent venture capital firm DCM.
In July, Dixon Doll, legendary founder of DCM (formerly known as Doll Capital Management) also became a board director of DirecTV just three months after the satellite television broadcaster joined the $49m series D round for advertising services provider Invidi Technologies, as media groups maintained close links with private equity executives.
However, while the media industry remains at the forefront of sectors for the number and seniority of women leading teams, including Amy Banse taking over at the expanded and highly-regarded Comcast Ventures group, Qing Ji at Tencent and Fiona O’Carroll at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, few have been as proactive as seed-stage technology firm O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures (OATV), which takes early-stage stakes on behalf of US technology publisher O’Reilly.
Bryce Roberts, co-founder of OATV, in March tweeted a message that his firmwas recruiting an associate but had yet to have any female applicants.
After re-tweets and blog linking, OATV hired Renee DiResta in June. She was previously a trader at Jane Street Capital. As Roberts said: "We simply wanted to hire the best person for the job. The process was smooth and she is an absolute star."
Comcast has also set up DreamIt, a $20m fund for entrepreneurs of ethnic minority backgrounds, after a similar media industry-backed vehicle, Quetzal, raised $170m in the late 1990s.