Corporate investors launch startup accelerators

26/02/2014
Diego Gutiérrez
Corporate investors launch startup accelerators
In the last few years, the number of companies that invest in startups technology-based innovation. The main cause of this phenomenon is that companies are moving to an open innovation model, they are looking for innovation through new mergers and acquisitions.

 

 

Companies launching accelerators

Until a few years ago Google ventures was the only company that was committed to invest in early-stage start-ups. Now companies such as Siemens, Coca-Cola  , Warner Bros or Disney  have acceleration programmes.

"In Spain, too, they are appearing accelerators launched by companies, such as the case of Wayra or Caf ventures. Wayra is the accelerator of telephone which today is presenting its demoday to investors at the mobile World Congress which is held in Barcelona. Caf ventures is the accelerator of Caf, a company specialising in the railway sector, with the aim of finding new companies that bring freshness to the sector". Says Diego Gutierrez, an expert in alternative financing, from the group. Abra-invest.

Investments in second rounds

The tables below show the corporate investments in seed capital companies and in phase A and B rounds respectively. As we can see, investment is higher in more advanced companies, which have already received a round in the past.

SK Telecom Americas

Companies such as SK Telecom Americas, have seen in the corporate investments a necessity rather than an investment. SK Telecom saw a lack of investment in what it defined as 'core technology' so it decided to allocate $10M of its own balance sheet to create Innovation Accelerator SKTA.

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