Transport

The commercial vehicle manufacturer has appointed Martin Witt to head its investment subsidiary after more than 14 years at Accenture Strategy.

The used car marketplace has achieved unicorn status after raising $31.3m in funding from investors including existing backer DMG Ventures.

The Fosun-backed automotive parts trading platform boosted its total series B funding to $130m with a series C2 round led by Greater Bay Area Homeland Investments.

One vaccine developer, CureVac, has received a generous backing from Germany’s government-owned development bank KfW, while another – Vaxcyte – went public raising $250m.

Samsung Catalyst Fund, BMW i Ventures and NavInfo all exited street-level image repository Mapillary in an acquisition by Facebook.

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

Rail operator JR East's newly formed incubation hub has begun accepting membership applications from entrepreneurs.

American Express Ventures contributed to a $19.5m round for mobility integrator Splyt that was led by newly minted partner SoftBank.

Every day, Global University Venturing rounds up the smaller investments from across the university innovation ecosystem in its deal net.

The oil and gas producer’s Wind Ventures vehicle features ex-corporate venturers from Konica Minolta and GM Ventures, and has revealed its first portfolio companies.

The demographic phenomenon of ageing populations will present challenges to both developed and developing nations. Along with the challenges come opportunities, however, and corporate venture capitalists may be a particularly well-positioned group to help with them, as it is the connecting tissue between the world of incumbent corporate industry leaders and the space of disruptive innovation.