The Art of Corporate Venture

Prepared by researchers from the Washington University, St Louis on behalf of The Yield Lab, sponsored by Rabo Strategic Ventures

Monthly analysis: February 2020

The United Nations-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has previously estimated the world will need to remove an average of 10 gigatons –10 billion tons – of carbon dioxide (CO2) a year from the atmosphere by 2050.

Netherlands-based financial services firm Rabobank provided an additional €80m ($90m) of funding for its strategic investment subsidiary, Rabo Frontier Ventures a year ago in February 2019.

Special report: Agtech

The third annual Global Corporate Venturing Israel conference took place in Tel Aviv on February 11 in partnership with local corporate innovation advisory firm Axis Innovation.

Sector analysis: Industrial

Wipro Ventures exited email security software developer Emailage, when it was acquired by LexisNexis Risk Solutions. The sizeable deal is part of the wider cybersecurity space which has been popular over recent years.

Corporates Tencent and SoftBank invested in a $2.41bn round raised by real estate platform Beike Zhaofang at a reported $14bn valuation. The transaction is part of the broader real estate tech space which has seen a surge in valuations in recent years.

Alphabet’s self-driving car developer Waymo raised its first external funding in a round backed by its parent company and two other corporates.

Alphabet will exit credit management company Credit Karma in a $7.1bn acquisition by Intuit.