The $65m KDDI Open Innovation Fund will invest in local and foreign companies and KDDI said it would also offer service development, platforms for cloud services using the phone operator's Au Smart Pass content offering, and support for promotional activities.

The pharmaceutical corporation is closing its corporate venturing unit, and will instead invest in strategic partnerships with mid-sized companies.

Evonik's new Corporate Venturing unit will be within its Innovation Management division and invest in start-ups and venture capital firms across Europe, the US and Asia.

The media conglomerate is an anchor investor in University Ventures, a $100m fund that will partner with higher education institutions to launch innovative, digitally-based educational programs. An early project is a hispanic-focused college in California.

The media conglomerate is an anchor investor in University Ventures, a $100m fund that will partner with higher education institutions to launch innovative, digitally-based educational programs.

The venture capital firm, which uses detailed analytics combined with a co-investment model, has closed its inaugural fund, which was oversubscribed from its $150m target.

The VC firm, Access BridgeGap, will back three to five early-stage therapeutics companies per year.

The VC firm, Access BridgeGap, will back three to five early-stage therapeutics companies per year.

US-based University of Texas will partly fund its medical research from a $2m fund set up from the profits made from the sale of its stake in a start-up.

The W Fund plans to invest $250,000 to $500,000 in about 25 to 30 early-stage companies over the next five years, focusing efforts on upstarts that have strong ties to research universities in the state, GeekWire said.