Global University Venturing

A leading company in the e-signature and digital transaction management space, San Francisco-based DocuSign went public in April last year, with a market capitalization of $4.4bn.

Having emerged from the Merck Serono Entrepreneur Partnership Program (EPP) in 2015, Prexton Therapeutics raised a total $41m of funding before it was acquired by pharmaceutical firm Lundbeck for an estimated $1.1bn last year.

Maana recently won GCV’s inaugural award for energy-tech corporate venture capital (CVC) investment of the year, presented during its Venture Houston conference in November. Now, Maana has gone one-stage further and won the Sub-$50m Investment of the Year award across all industries.

In May last year, Severstal announced the launch of Severstal Ventures – a corporate venture fund that would invest directly as well as through other funds in advanced materials and associated technologies, in Russia and abroad.

Launched in July last year, Swisscom Digital Transformation Fund is Swisscom Ventures’ first investment vehicle that is open to third-party institutional investors.

Among the many news released by Salesforce Ventures last year, the unit announced in early December two new $100m funds in Canada and Japan, both aiming to boost startup innovation that is part of the global Salesforce ecosystem.

Having significantly increased its market share in the US in recent years, on-demand transportation company Lyft recently appointed JP Morgan to lead its planned initial public offering (IPO) with an estimated valuation of $15.1bn.

Currently valued at over $3bn, Katerra, which aims to revolutionise the construction sector with its technology, is said to be the most well-funded construction tech startup.

Backed by Stanford-StartX Fund, marketing intelligence platform Knotch has now secured at least $31.5m in total funding and will now pursue technology upgrades and and internal expansion.

University of Cambridge's commercialisation arm has found a new entrepreneur-in-residence in Paul Bailey with experience in human capital planning and links with local academic-industry initiatives.

Virtual reality entertainment operator Sandbox VR has amassed $68m in series A capital from investors including Stanford University.