Catherine Lenson, the first female managing partner at Softbank, has left the corporate venture arm of the Japanese technology conglomerate.

M12, a Microsoft Venture Fund, has hired Jason McBride as a partner, after working as the corporation's director of business development for two years

Tencent took part in a $400m round for Skydance Media while CrowdStrike helped Vanta hike its series B to $150m.

The Australian startup has bucked an overall down market for payments companies because it has features ideal for financial volatility. This is why Tencent, ANZ and Salesforce are investing.

Rakuten-backed Base Food is set to list on TSE’s Growth Market in an IPO valuing it at $329m while Mitsui was part of a $400m round for Yellow Door Energy.

Thomas Reuters and Siemens participated in DataGrail’s $45m series C round while AyoConnect boosted its series B to $25m.

Salesforce, ANZ and Tencent helped Airwallex boost its series E round to $300m while Hermes-Epitek chipped into a $30m series A for Ochre Bio.

The value of corporate-backed deals slumped in the third quarter, but sectors like energy and telecoms bucked the trend as did a few geographies like Israel.

BBC Studios bought portfolio company Firebird Pictures while SoftBank Vision Fund 2 led a nine-figure round for dental product maker SprintRay.

Strong branding helped give a canned water producer reach a $700m valuation while the promise of long-term energy storage fueled a $450m mega round.