This is promising for other groups, such as Canada and South Africa-based energy groups Cenovus and Sasol, which have decided against continuing or forming a formal corporate venturing programme, senior executives at both companies said.

It is hard to keep corporations out of venturing, it appears.

In early 2012, US-based biotech company Biogen Idec closed its corporate venturing unit in favour of making investments in strategic partnerships with mid-sized companies.

Launched in 2004, one year after the company was created from a merger between pharmaceutical companies Biogen and Idec, Biogen Idec’s corporate venturing division, the New Ventures Group, had invested $200m over about eight years.

The unit was shut down in favour of further licensing…