France-based corporate venturing unit Innovacom has spun off from its parent after raising a seed fund from third parties in 10 months.
Innovacom, which invests in Europe and the US, had been part of phone operator France Telecom for more than 21 years and the move to independence was designed to reassure its new limited partners for the €30m ($40m) Technocom II fund.
Innovacom’s independence also follows the parent group’s Orange mobile phone subsidiary’s decision to commit to venture capital funds in transport and teleocms managed by third parties, Ecomobilite Ventures and Iris Capital, respectively, earlier in the year.
Orange, however, retains its Asia-focused corporate venturing unit and is a limited partner (LP) – investor – in the Technocom II, which will invest in about 15 start-ups from French public, academic and industrial research in materials and components, embedded software systems, machine to machine and machine to user…
