The big exits kept rolling in. Nokia Growth Partners, the corporate venturing unit of the Finland-based technology business, was one of the backers of China-based local services platform Ganji, which was bought by 58.com in a $2.4bn cash and shares deal. This was another large exit in China for Nokia Growth Partners, which was also a backer of mobile browser business UCWeb, sold to Alibaba for an undisclosed multibillion-dollar sum.
The dominance of China with the most active investors was also echoed in exits. The flotation of local insurer Ping An Insurance-backed Legend Holdings raised $1.96bn in its listing in Hong Kong.
Cloud business Virtustream’s $1.2bn sale to storage company EMC was also a big win for Intel Capital, the corporate venturing unit of the US-based chipmaker, and Sapphire Ventures, which has software group SAP as its sole investor.
The initial public offering of US tracking business Fitbit was a success for corporate venturing backers. At press time it had a market capitalisation of $9.4bn, making huge paper returns for Sapphire Ventures, SoftBank and Qualcomm Ventures, the corporate venturing unit of the microprocessor company. It raised $841m in its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange.
Healthcare winners made up six of the top 10 exits, if you count Fitbit, along with more conventional healthcare businesses Quanticel, Galapagos, Spinifex, Evolent and Adaptimmune, in a strong quarter for the sector.
