Telecoms

Several corporate venturers have backed IoT company Terminus Technologies in a $283m series C1 round. This nine-figure round comes to confirm an upward trend in valuations of such enterprises we have been observing for years.

Samsung Next has bet on secure telecommunications platform developer SignalWire in an $11.5m round that will support work on its newest product.

Shannon Lee Chaluangco has left her position as investment manager for C31 Ventures to join MDI Ventures as an investment director.

Last year there was a peak in number of IPOs of corporate-backed emerging business, while the first half of 2019 hosted some much-awaited flotations like those of Uber, Lyft and Slack. We look at the broader picture for corporate-backed companies going public.

Rounds above $100m tend to be raised by companies based in the US and China. Last year we saw a record number of corporate-backed rounds.

Since the beginning of 2018, a fifth of all corporate investors whose deals we track appear to be newcomers.

Blackstone will purchase the advertising platform Vungle in a deal giving exits to corporates Alphabet and Verizon.

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

Cancer treatment company Biontech raised $325m round backed by Fidelity. The company forms part of the hopeful oncology and cancer treatment subsector of life sciences which has seen much growth and in corporate backing in recent years.

Analysis: Q2 2019

The latest note by data provider PitchBook found that, in the context of growth in corporate venture capital, the most active CVC arms it examines have shown a strong historical performance and corporate-backed portfolio companies have reaped benefits in the form of higher exit chances and lower bankruptcy rates