Corporate VC veteran Stephan Baral has left Porsche Ventures to join the electric takeoff and landing aircraft maker.

The UK utility’s CVC unit will be led by Stephen Smith, who is joined by GCV Powerlist member Pradeep Tagare, among others.

Deutsche Bank Venture Capital’s former CVC head, Gil Perez, will join law firm Freshfields in April as its California-based chief innovation officer.

UK corporates invest in the domestic innovation ecosystem less than US, French and German peers. The government is trying to change that.

BMW was among the investors that backed the UK venture firm, which will be divided into a $100m seed fund and a $150m growth fund.

The VC fund backed by E.ON has reached a $120m first close and promoted Patrick Elftmann to US managing partner.

Tim Hammond, who spent the past 24 years at the University of Durham and was programme lead at Northern Accelerator, retired at the end of January.

After nearly two decades with the University of Bristol, director of enterprise services Mustafa Rampuri has joined startup Duality Quantum Photonics.

Mital Patel, formerly vice president of strategic and fintech investments at Citi, has taken up a director of strategic investments role.

Algorithmic trading group XTX Markets has named former investment manager Gabriele Papievyte as head of its corporate venturing unit.