Now the Christmas period has finally drawn to a close it is a fitting time to look back on a fascinating year for corporate venturing units.
In fact the debate has already kicked off as to whether the year was overly exuberant. Marc Andreessen, the co-founder of venture firm Andreessen Horowitz told the Wall Street Journal last week his firm was "taking a step back". Given that in the last year Andreessen’s firm appears to have been one of the most bullish in Silicon Valley, the volte face is dramatic. His comments drew a swift riposte from venture rival Union Square Ventures’ Fred Wilson arguing, á la Sir Toby Belch, that the killjoys of the moment should bear in mind the best deals are worth funding at any time; adding it is impossible to guess the top of the market.
Yet while the year’s newsflow was dominated by banner listings such as those of networking company LinkedIn, games company Zynga and discount voucher company Groupon, the 10 most popular articles on Global Corporate Venturing last year ran the gamut of the type of articles we write about:
The most popular piece was an interview with McClaren Applied Technologies’ Geoff McGrath by Corven consulting network’s Andrew Gaule, part of a series of monthly interviews which have rapidly developed a cult following among our readers.
The second most popular was an analysis of a funding round for Brazilian fashion website Brandsclub involving media company Naspers’ MIH and venture firm Trayas, which both managed to back Facebook (Naspers did so indirectly via its link to Digital Sky Technologies through its large Tencent stake).
In third place was our write-up of Indian conglomerate Godrej Group launching Omnivore Capital, a $50m corporate venturing fund. This was followed by our list of the top 20 energy corporate venturing firms. Our fifth most read story was our analysis of the make-up of the corporate venturing industry as it enters its "golden age".
Also well read was our break-down of the returns for the European Groupon investors which backed Germany-based rival City Deal. We calculated the Samwer brothers’ Rocket Internet made $1bn in paper returns on their investment in the company, while listed investment company Investment Kinnevik made a circa 70 times return, pointing to big gains for their corporate venturing partners Holtzbrinck Ventures and eVenture Capital Partners.
In seventh and eighth most read were our lists of the 75 most influential healthcare corporate venturing units and the top 50 high-tech units. In ninth place was Debra Brackeen joining Citigroup’s growth ventures unit from her corporate venturing role at Hewlett-Packard. Tenth most read was a write-up of a controversial academic report which argued corporates had "a negligible" impact for the venture portfolio companies they back.
It is a certainty the coming year will be an eventful one for those in the corporate venturing industry. We calculate there was a record number of funds launched last year which will be detailed further in our inaugural data due to be publicly released in the middle of this month. Venture deal activity from corporates was robust and the year has begun with a flurry of activity. Some of those who over-indulge at this time, given the uncertain economic outlook, may run into difficulties, but there is also opportunity. Let us hope 2012 matches 2011 for the variety and excitement that helped bring corporate venturing firms towards the spotlight.