Renaissance Venture Capital Fund has closed its third fund of funds at $81m, securing several Michigan-based corporates as limited partners.

The London-based VC investor has surprised observers by securing $74m from the EU-backed agency.

The capital will help turn early-stage university ideas into successful spinouts, having already backed a Car T-based immuno-oncological therapy for multiple myeloma.

The eyewear retailer Lenskart plans to provide a total of up to $3m for strategically compatible startups, the first of which is ThinOptics.

The logistics provider's Hidden Hill Modern Logistics Private Equity Fund will make technology-focused investments in the logistics sector.

The Institute for Translational Medicine has been launched with $35m in funding from the National Institutes of Health to commercialise research from multiple universities.

Blavatnik Family Foundation has made a $15m grant to Yale University to boost its life sciences-focused fund to $25m two years after it was first established.

MIT has teamed up Socar-AQS to fund app-based technologies originating from the entrepreneurship ecosystem of Ada University.

The chemicals arm of oil and gas producer Petronas will use corporate venturing as one route to emerging technologies and markets.