The University of Cambridge is making its first three investments into UoC spinouts through its new Enterprise Fund.

"I care for the commercial side, Claus [Schmidt, another managing director] for the technical side."

Nadkarni says he proposed the venturing unit's creation three years ago because the VC community was "sitting on its hands".

During the past decade he has expanded the corporate venturing team to 14 in offices in the US, China, Japan and Germany.

British investor Sir James Dyson, founder of vacuum cleaner company Dyson, is donating $7.9m to The Royal College of Art to support engineering start-ups.

Chief architect behind a unique set up in the corporate venturing industry.

The corporate venturing group is the sixth biggest, according to Global Corporate Venturing analysis, after its mandate was increased.

Alongside O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures (OATV) in the round were venture capital firm True Ventures and angel investor Chris Michel.

Founded in 2001, Tsing manages four dollar-denominated clean-tech funds with $600m in aggregate and two RMB funds with a total size of RMB1bn ($160m).