Aster Capital, a France-based venture capital firm formed by the merger of two corporate venturing units, has added local chemicals company Rhodia as its third investor, or limited partner (LP).
French engineering companies Alstom and Schneider Electric formed Aster in January last year out of Schneider Electric Ventures – founded in 2000 with a €50m fund.
The first close of Aster II fund was at €70m ($100m) in January 2010, with €40m from Schneider Electric and €30m from Alstom. Rhodia has committed an estimated €15m to make a second close of Aster II at €85m for a fund targeting €120m to €150m. Financial LPs are expected to make up the balance later this year.
The fund has already made one, undisclosed seed round investment.
Rhodia’s only previous corporate venturing deal was Eight19, a UK-based flexible solar panel company spun out of Cambridge University, and which is held separately to Aster II.
Cédric Latessa, a partner at Aster, said: "[Rhodia is] very complementary to our two corporate sponsors LPs as they give us further depth and expertise in important clean-tech sectors: green chemicals, new materials and recycling."
Companies in the fund’s portfolio will also have access to the global network of each of the three LPs while Aster has set up a global network by hiring Todd Dauphinais in September to open its US office, while Kevin Cai is in China and Adrien Berbier is in Japan.
For a panel discussion moderated by James Mawson from Global Corporate Venturing and involving Aster Capital’s Latessa at a New Energy World conference earlier this year, also including BP’s John Steedman and Robert Bosch Venture Capital’s Markus Thill, please click here.