One of our seed articles, written as we laid the groundwork for MediaTech Ventures, highlighted the need for and role of corporate investment in video game development. As though the analysts behind that article were prescient, tech market intelligence platform CB Insights announced recently the 55 most active Corporate VC firms and I’m pleasantly surprised to see nearly half of the firms are in media companies.
The data, based on the first half of 2016, notes among the 10 most active corporate venture groups Google Ventures, Comcast Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, and Bloomberg Beta, and media oriented corporate venture capital would eclipse wholly half of the top 10 if Samsung Ventures, at #11, had made the 10 most active cut. Qualcomm Ventures is indeed a media oriented venture capital group having established a serious and intentional focus in VR with a recent forum hosting VR Austin and Owlchemy Labs.
Rounding out their list is a veritable who’s who of major media companies and a substantial reflection of the significant role corporate investment plays in MediaTech innovation, with Microsoft, Hearst, Verizon, Bertelsmann Digital Media, Nokia, and Time Warner among them.
