2014 saw venture capital funding hit the highest levels since 2000 and corporate VCs played a huge part (get the free 2014 Corporate VC Report here). On a year-over-year basis, corporate venture capital deals increased 29% including 2014’s largest venture deals ranging from Cloudera to Tango to Slack.
With corporate venture activity on the rise, a number of corporate venture arms are also racking up the exits. According to CB Insights data, Google Ventures and Intel Capital led corporate VCs by the number of U.S.-based exits in 2014.
Google Ventures’ 2014 exits included the IPOs of Hubspot and OnDeck Capital, NY’s largest venture-backed tech exit ever, as well as Google’s own acquisition of Nest. Intel Capital’s exits included Yodlee‘s IPO and Rocket Fuel’s acquisition of ad tech firm [x+1] and Akamai’s acquisition of cybersecurity company Prolexic Technologies. Notably, the two active and predominantly tech corporate VCs had more than 3x the number of exits of GlaxoSmithKline’s SR One, which finished third on the exit tally. SR One was the leader among life science corporate venture arms.
Given 2014’s huge year for healthcare IPOs, four healthcare-focused corporate VCs made the list including Novo Ventures, Novartis Venture Funds and Johnson & Johnson Development Corp. The full list below.
| Rank | CVC Investor | Select 2014 Exits |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Google Ventures | OnDeck Capital, Hubspot, Nest Labs |
| 2 | Intel Capital | Yodlee, [x+1], Prolexic Technolgies |
| 3 | SR One | Dicerna, iPierian, Concert Pharma |
| 4 | Qualcomm Ventures | Divide, MoboTap, Location Labs |
| 4 | Samsung Ventures | Fixmo, Cloudant, Engrade |
| 4 | Motorola Solutions Venture Capital | Fixmo, Zephyr Technology, Lumidigm |
| 4 | Mitsui & Co. Global Investment | ProteinSimple, Change Healthcare, Location Labs |
| 8 | Novartis Venture Funds | Alios BioPharma, Akebia Therapeutics, Celladon |
| 8 | Novo Ventures | Alios BiopPharma, Nevro, Otonomy |
| 8 | Johnson & Johnson Development Corp. | Celladon, Nevro, CardioMems |
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