Financial

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

Such enormous losses help explain why Bytedance in January said it was dissolving its corporate venturing unit.

An overwhelming majority of respondents in our poll said they took board seats — mainly to influence and help the startups in their portfolio.

Prologis Ventures and GV helped supply chain analytics provider Altana raise $100m while Amazon and BHP were among the investors in an $85m round for clean steel technology developer Electra.

Q2 Holdings has acquired National Bank of Canada and OpenText-backed Sensibill while ArcelorMittal's XCarb unit was part of Form Energy’s $450m series E round.

MassMutual's diversity-focused fund-of-funds has been granted an extra $100m, bringing the amount it has invested in CVC activities to $900m.

The sector is vulnerable to the economic downturn as lenders pull back and higher interest rates crimp borrowing. But pockets of the sector continue to attract financing.

Braskem has formed a $150m corporate venturing initiative while Saudi Aramco's Prosperity7 Ventures fund took part in SingleStore’s $146m series F2 round.

General Mills was among the investors in a $120m round for GrubMarket while Polaris and Hero MotoCorp helped Zero Motorcycles raise $107m.

Non-recyclable plastics making asphalt more sustainable and a vaccine to save the honeybee are just two of 10 inventions that caught our eye.

In the run-up to the float, Porche's investment arm had invested in 18 companies, from hypercars to EV batteries and even bikes.