The US conglomerate, which oversees the DYMO Endicia brand, is helping Equaship to gear up for an autumn launch.

Pelillo was previously at phone operator Orange-France Telecom Group, latterly as head of networks and advertising exchange, and internet services provider AOL.

Freeman had been CEO of Mediabrands Ventures since January last year and will now be global head of innovation for McCann Worldgroup. Jimmy Poon, chief executive of Mediabrands also now leads its Ventures unit.

VC@OMD helps its parent manage soft drinks maker PepsiCo's Pepsi 10 and industrial conglomerate General Electric's GE/OMD Innovation Incubator programmes and Jonathan Haber has stepped up to be chief innovation officer.

Earlier in the year, Stanford university graduates Tim Su, Astrid's co-founder and chief technology officer, and Jon Paris, Astrid co-founder and chief executive, joined the start-up accelerator AngelPad, which was set up by a group of ex-Google executives and has previously seen incubees Crittercism and Shopobot receive Google Ventures backing.

Steps on the road to being an adept venturer. This is the second article if a three-part series following a corporate venturer's evolution from in-house balance sheet investor of pet projects into a full-blown venture capital house with third-party investors.

CyberAgent Ventures invests in Clever Advertising.

Founded in 2005, Ganji has now raised close to $20m from Nokia-backed funds.

An Indian private equity arm of Fidelity International has invested $15m in a local education company and will put two executives on its board.