Corporate Venturing One form of investing that was popular in the 1980s and is again very popular is corporate venturing. This is usually called "direct investing" in portfolio companies by venture capital programs or subsidiaries of nonfinancial corporations. These investment vehicles seek to find qualified investment opportunities that are congruent with the parent company’s strategic technology or that provide synergy or cost savings.
These corporate venturing programs may be loosely organized programs affiliated with existing business development programs or may be self-contained entities with a strategic charter and mission to make investments congruent with the parent’s strategic mission. There are some venture firms that specialize in advising, consulting and managing a corporation’s venturing program.
The typical distinction between corporate venturing and other types of venture investment vehicles is that corporate venturing is usually performed with corporate strategic objectives in mind while other venture investment vehicles typically have investment return or financial objectives as their primary goal. This may be a generalization as corporate venture programs are not immune to financial considerations, but the distinction can be made.
The other distinction of corporate venture programs is that they usually invest their parent’s capital while other venture investment vehicles invest outside investors’ capital.
