Energy

Each Friday the Global Corporate Venturing Deal Net rounds up the week’s smaller deals and tracks the emerging companies accessing corporate funds.

American Electric Power, Chevron, Daimler, BMW and Siemens are among of consortium of backers that also included Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC.

Two large and important deals above the $1bn mark in the e-commerce and e-retail space in East Asia appeared in the news last week. Both deals involved telecoms group SoftBank as a corporate backer.

Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures has hired Jim Sledzik, formerly president of Energy Ventures, to helm the US arm of its unit.

The number of flotations of companies that have previously received corporate backing has been growing over the past couple years. More interestingly, it has been companies from the life sciences sector that beat other sectors in going public.

Each Friday the Global Corporate Venturing Deal Net rounds up the week’s smaller deals and tracks the emerging companies accessing corporate funds.

The soil analytics provider took its total funding to $19m in a round featuring agricultural investment, data and media platform AgFunder.

The corporate has resurrected the Schneider Electric Ventures unit it folded into Aster in 2010 and will invest up to $565m through the vehicle.

Boehringer Ingelheim and Helsinn helped oncology vaccine developer Amal reach the second close of a series B round that now totals $32.7m.

Innovative region: Brazil