GDP Venture

  • DATABASE (641)

  • ARTICLES (234)

    • DATABASE (641)
    • ARTICLES (234)
  • Sort by
    • Relevance
    • Date

Founded by the charismatic Japanese billionaire Masayoshi Son, SoftBank Group Corp is a multinational conglomerate with assets totaling about $342bn in 2020. SoftBank is best known in Japan for its mobile phone network and distribution business, and it was the sole distributor of the Apple iPhone in Japan until 2011. SoftBank also has subsidiaries in online gaming, publishing, and energy, and owns stakes in Alibaba Group and Sprint.Outside of Japan, SoftBank is known for its venture capital investments. In October 2016, it teamed up with Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund to lead a $100bn tech fund, named Vision Fund. Through Vision Fund, SoftBank has made some major high-profile investments into tech companies, such as TikTok developer ByteDance, e-commerce platforms like Coupang, Tokopedia and Flipkart, and coworking operator WeWork.

Toyota Motor Corporation (Toyota) started as a division of the Toyoda Automatic Loom Works in 1933, and established as an independent in 1937. As of December 2019, it ranked tenth largest company in the world by revenue. An established multinational automotive manufacturer, Toyota has invested in startups working on everything from online marketing to cybersecurity, placing an focus on new-generation mobility services. In 2019, it invested $600m in Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing, and founded a joint venture to offer car maintenance, insurance and finance services to ride-hailing drivers. Also that year, Toyota invested $500m in Uber for self-driving cars. In early 2020, the auto giant invested $400 in the self-driving startup Pony.ai. Before the investment, the two had already partnered to test self-driving cars on public roads in China. 

Joe Zhou graduated from Beijing University of Technology in 1982 and worked five years as a lecturer at his alma mater. In 1987, he went to study in the US and obtained a master’s at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in 1989. He stayed in New Jersey and worked for five years at AT&T Bell Labs and its spin-off Lepton Inc.In 1995, Zhou returned to work in China as the VP of UTStarcom China until 1999 when he joined Softbank China Venture Capital as the head of its Beijing office. In October 2001, he became a partner at Softbank’s SAIF for five years. In 2007, he became a founding managing partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers China. In April 2008, he co-founded Keytone Ventures as managing partner.

Founded in 1813 as a small grain-trading firm in Arlon, France (now Belgium), Continental Grain Company (CGC) is now headquartered in New York. It has operations in 10 countries and employs over 13,500 people worldwide. Business activities include animal feeds, aquaculture and meat production.Besides interests in the food, agribusiness and commodities sectors, CGC also manages different asset classes like private equity, listed securities and venture capital. Its investment portfolio includes more than 30 food and agribusiness companies, ranging from early-stage ventures to established market leaders across the US, China and Latin America.CGC Asia mainly invests in feed milling, animal husbandry, meat production and processing businesses in the region. Direct investments are made through Continental Capital Limited in China, focusing on high‐growth food and agribusiness firms.

Founded in Sydney in 2004, Artesian Capital Management (Australia) Pty Ltd is a global alternative investment management firm specialized in public and private debt, venture capital and impact investment strategies. The VC was a spin-off from ANZ Banking Group’s capital markets business, backed by ANZ Private Equity. Artesian’s founding partners Jeremy Colless, Matthew Clunies-Ross and John McCartney bought ANZ’s stake in 2005.Today, Artesian has international offices in New York, London, Singapore, Jakarta and Shanghai. Its China VC Fund was launched in 2017 and the firm also has plans for a Southeast Asia VC Fund. The alternative investment firm currently manages multiple funds including Australian VC Fund 2, High Impact Green Debt Fund, GrainInnovate and Women Economic Empowerment Fund.

Born in Shanghai in 1973, Zhang and his parents immigrated to the US in 1987. He received his bachelor’s in Neurobiology from the University of California, San Francisco in 1995 and his master’s in Biotechnology and Business from Northwestern University in 1999. Zhang worked at Salomon Smith Barney and ABN AMRO Capital from 1999–2001. He then served as managing director and head of China operations at venture capital firm WI Harper Group from 2002–2008. Zhang has since served as founding managing partner at Matrix Partners China.

Axon Partners Group is an international investment, corporate development, alternative asset management and consulting firm. It was formed in 2012 as the result of bringing together two companies founded by Francisco Velázquez six years earlier: Axon Capital, a Spanish venture capital firm and SVP Advisors, a boutique consulting outfit that specialized in media and telecommunications. Axon Partners Group manages five funds across Southern Europe, Latin America and India and is in the midst of launching a multi-sectoral pan-European fund. 

Speedinvest is a pan-European, early-stage venture capital firm with offices in Vienna, Munich, San Francisco, Berlin, London and Paris. The firm helps startups grow internationally. Its raised its third and latest fund of €190m in Feburary 2020, bringing total AUM to over €400m. Each investment ticket size starts from €50,000 and goes up to €1.5m. Founded by Austrian Oliver Holle, a former entrepreneur who founded his business in the 2000s and went on to work another tech startup in Silicon Valley. With conviction that "European founders can win big in the Valley and beyond,” Rolle started Speedinvest with a €10m fund in 2011.The firm mainly invests in pan-European fintech startups, digital health, consumer tech, B2B SaaS and deep tech startups.   

Gerard Olivé is a serial entrepreneur based in Barcelona. He is currently the co-CEO and co-founder of Antai Venture Builder, in charge of a multimillion-euro advertising inventory. He graduated in Audiovisual Communications at Barcelona's Ramon Llull University. As an angel investor, Olivé made his first disclosed investment in 2016 when he participated in the pre-seed and subsequent seed funding rounds of Spanish femtech WOOM. He founded BeRepublic, a strategic consulting firm specializing in digital businesses in southern Europe and Latin America. In 2015, he co-founded BeAgency, an interactive marketing agency with offices in Barcelona and Madrid. He is also a co-founder and mentor of Connector Startup Accelerator. He has also co-founded startups like Wallapop, Glovo, CornerJob, Deliberry, Shoppiday, Shopery, BePretty, Mascoteros, Marmota, Havet, Prontopiso, Medox and Trendier.

Crevisse Partners is a South Korean investor and venture builder with an impact focus. Its name stands for “Creative, Visionary and Social Entrepreneurs”. Originally incorporated in 2004, Crevisse claims to be the first impact investor in Korea, even before such terms became commonplace. The company strives to develop businesses in sectors “where the market principle wasn’t working”.Crevisse has internally incubated a number of companies in South Korea, such as reusable drinking cup company BringYourCup, sustainable forestry firm Forest Trust, and fundraising service DONUS. Crevisse Ventures is the company’s dedicated VC arm that manages a $20m fund and a number of blended finance funds through collaborations with government agencies and financial institutions. In particular, Crevisse Ventures focuses on startups that solve problems in four major areas: urban communities; climate and energy; education and welfare; as well as jobs and economic growth.

Creandum invests in early-stage technology firms in the consumer internet, software and hardware sectors. The firm has grown from having 10 startups in its portfolio and an advisory team scattered across Sweden in 2007, to being headquartered in Stockholm with offices in Berlin, San Francisco  and Guernsey and a total five funds raised worth over €700m. It's most recent fund raised €265m in 2019 and will ofcus on European startups. The company was the lead investor in more than a third of its almost 150 investments to date and was Spotify's first institutional investor. The most recent investments include in Spanish HR SaaS Factorial's €15m Series A round and in German tax assistant app Taxfix's US$65m Series C round. 

Founded in 2009, Andreessen Horowitz is based in Menlo Park in California. The numeronym is the first and last letter of the firm’s brand with the characters count in-between. Starting with initial capital of $300m, the VC quickly raised a second venture fund of $650m in 2010 and another worth $1.5bn in 2014. In 2019, a new office was set up in San Francisco.Founded by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, the firm has invested in tech pioneers like Skype, Facebook, Groupon and Twitter. Andreessen is the software engineer who pioneered web browser Mosaic and co-founded Netscape. In 1995, Horowitz joined Andreessen as product manager at Netscape that was sold to AOL for $4.2bn in 2016. He also co-founded Opsware (Loudcloud), an automation software company that was sold to Hewlett Packard for $1.6bn in 2007.

Norfund is the sovereign investment fund of Norway, established by the parliament in 1997 and owned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The company has committed NOK 28.4bn in investments into 170 projects in developing countries as of 2020. Norfund has regional offices in Thailand, Costa Rica, Kenya, Mozambique and Ghana to support its activities in Asia, Africa and Latin America. In Asia, its core investment targets are Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Norfund primarily invests in three key areas: clean energy, agriculture and fintech. The fund has invested in solar power projects and various food companies in India and various African countries. In Asia, Norfund has invested in Amartha, an Indonesian P2P lending fintech company providing loans to women-led microbusinesses. Norfund also invests in other venture funds, such as Southeast Asia-focused Openspace Ventures Fund III, to expand and diversify their portfolio.

Set up in 2012 by Jackie Chen (Chen Liang) and Sebastian Kübler, who together with Raymond Lei (Lei Yang) founded Taishan Invest AG, one of China's first angel funds. TXD Ventures is an early-stage investor focusing on Chinese consumer startups, particularly online- and/or mobile-based. Its investments range from RMB 1 million to RMB 6 million.

Founded by Feng Bo, who left China for San Francisco at aged 18 and returning in 1994, as one of technology-focused boutique investment bank Robertson Stephens' first bankers in China. Feng set up Ceyuan Ventures in 2004, focusing on early-stage IT and emerging growth firms in China. Notable investments include Jiayuan, Qihoo 360, Dianping and Meitu. Feng Bo is the brother of Feng Tao, another leading investor, and founder and head of NewMargin Ventures.

Sorry, we couldn’t find any matches for “GDP Venture”.

Your payment was not successful.

Please make sure you have entered your payment details correctly. Or try again in a few moments.

small logo

The discount code you entered is invalid

Please make sure you have entered your discount code correctly. Or try again in a few moments.

Download successful.

Your sample has been sent. Please check your email.

By accessing and using www.compasslist.com and all pages within the domain (the “Website”), You accept and agree to have read, understood, accepted and agreed to be bound by the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy in full. If you disagree with all or any part of these Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, please do not use or continue any further use of this website. You acknowledge that you are aware that this Website contains an archive of existing content as at 31 December 2021 and is not being actively managed. We are under no obligation to update the content on this Website and, accordingly, no new content or articles will be posted to the Website after 31 December 2021.