We examine some co-investment patterns among corporate venturers we have been tracking since 2011.
Over the past eight years, Global Corporate Venturing has tracked and reported over 14,000 minority stake deals involving at least one corporate venturer on the investment syndicate, be it from a specialised venturing arm or an equity investment through a business unit of the corporation. In those deals, we have seen more than 2,000 corporates committing capital to emerging businesses, though the bulk of investments was made by slightly more than 300.
One of the logical questions with these data is how often corporates co-invest with one another. The answer is slightly mixed and interesting. The vast majority (68%) have co-invested with at least one other corporate through all their deals, while 32% appear never to have co-invested with other corporates.
For the period 2011-18, half of corporates (50%) have co-invested with two or more other corporate venturers across all their deals (with corporates not necessarily from the same sector, however). Slightly more than a quarter (27%) have co-invested with multiple – five or more other corporates. Only 18% have co-invested with just one other corporate venturer.
Semiconductor manufacturer Intel and diversified internet conglomerate Alphabet have had the largest number of corporate co-investors along with financial services firms Goldman Sachs and Fidelity.
When broken down by sector, we observe that a majority of corporate VC investors in each sector (between 50^% and 60%) tend to have had three or more co-investors, while only about a fifth have never co-invested with other corporates, according to our data from GCV Analytics.
And finally, when broken down by region, it is evident in all three of the major world regions for innovation – North America, Europe and East Asia, the pattern is similar. Half or nearly half of corporate VCs have co-invested with three or more of their peers.
