UK-listed utility National Grid has committed a further $150m to its Silicon Valley-based corporate venture and innovation group.

Things are heating in Italy’s media landscape as a microcosm of wider changes in the sports and gaming ecosystem.

Spend enough time in venture and you can see the transformation in startups and the economy almost as if time has speeded up.

There is a nice series in the Financial Times where business book authors then pick others they enjoyed.

Netherlands-listed technology investor Prosus, formed out of the corporate venturing assets collected by South Africa-listed media group Naspers, has sold 2% of China-based gaming and social media group Tencent for $14.7bn.

Activity is heating up before next week’s Earth day on 22 April with Battery Resourcers (BR), a US-based developer of lithium-ion battery recycling technology to directly recover cathodes, raising $21.35m in its series B round, according to a regulatory filing earlier this month.

Egypt has long had the potential for innovation and more money is flowing into the region as regional centres spring up to service the burgeoning class of entrepreneurs.

Japan’s corporate venturing ecosystem never slowed down through the covid-19 crisis last year and has been increasingly aggressive in its international investment strategy, with insurer Sompo’s $540m investment in US-based data analytics firm Palantir a notable example as well as cross-border specialist firms, such as Pegasus and Nobuyuki Akimoto’s new fund of funds, AT Partners, gaining investor backing.

Almost exactly a year ago most of the western world started locking down to grapple with the coronavirus and covid-19 disease it caused.

Sequoia China joins the $225m venture fund as a strategic limited partner (LP).