By Evan Vitale
As we head closer to Thanksgiving and other holidays, what’s happening in the world of venture capital?
Well, the New York Times has an interesting piece on Spark Capital and their “drive” to lead a $12.5 million investment in Cruise Automation – a start-up based in San Francisco whose software helps cars pilot themselves. Six months later, Cruise sold itself to General Motors for about $1 billion. You can read the full article here: http://nyti.ms/2fUvlCf
Forbes is reporting that there are two macro trends occurring within venture capital (VC) which are combining to have a transformative impact. As has been noted repeatedly over the past several years, the VC landscape has morphed into a barbell structure, with lots of small funds on one end and a handful of large, megafunds on the other, with few moderate-sized funds in between. Details: http://bit.ly/2fIcGsi
From Fortune.com, Following Donald Trump’s presidential election victory last Tuesday, a partner at Peter Thiel’s venture capital firm has publicly expressed his fears of a Trump presidency, breaking with the contrarian tech billionaire’s staunch support for the Republican real estate mogul.
Just as Thiel joins Trump’s White House transition team, Bloomberg reports that Geoff Lewis of Founders Fund spoke out against the President-elect, in a blog post published on Sunday titled “Turn On Reality.” Details: http://for.tn/2fqdODh
Sodexo has reported that its profit attributable to equity holds of the parent for fiscal year 2016 declined 9.0 percent to 637 million euros from 700 million euros in the previous year, so says RTT News. Details: http://bit.ly/2fYLhBR
However, a day later, Sodexo announced the launch of Sodexo Ventures, a 50-million euro venture capital fund, whose investments will combine agility and creativity with the Group’s investment capacity, skills and expertise in sectors as varied as Food-Tech, health and wellness, data, mobility and smart buildings.
Sodexo Ventures will invest in start-ups with high growth potential in line with Sodexo’s current or future activities. This investment strategy will allow Sodexo to closely monitor, anticipate and respond to evolutions in its rapidly moving sectors and markets. Details: http://bit.ly/2fYMXeI
