Nokia
Growth Partners, the U.S.-based venture capital arm of cell phone
giant Nokia, on Thursday said its parent company added $150 million
to its war chest, boosting its fund total to $250 million.
In
the last two and a half years Nokia has spent heavily on the
acquisition and funding of startups involved in mobile services
and content businesses in an effort to transform itself from a
cell phone maker to a full-service mobile player.
Nokia
invests both directly through Nokia Growth Partners and through other
venture funds such as Blue Run Venture, which was spawned out of
Nokia, Founders Fund, Gobi Partners, Magma, Oak Hill Capital
Partners, and Technology Crossover Ventures.
The
Finnish handset maker has invested more than $600 million in
independent venture funds and will commit an additional $100 million,
bringing its overall direct and indirect VC investment to $950
million.
Menlo
Park, California-based Nokia Growth Partners, launched in
2004 as a growth-stage fund, plans to extend its direct operations
beyond the U.S. to India, China, and Europe.
“We
invest with the primary goal of superior financial return and what we
can get out of that strategically is important and differentiated,
but financial investment comes first,” said Rick Simonson, CFO of
Nokia.
But
Nokia Growth Partners (NGP) remains focused on companies with mobile applications and chip sets related to emerging
areas such as the mobile Internet, mobile payments, location-based
services, and mobile entertainment.
NGP
invested in Global Locate, a U.S.-based GPS chip maker, which was
acquired by Broadcom in 2007. The firm also invested in Indian
communications software company Sasken, which went public in 2006.
The company has also invested in Kyte, a mobile video sharing firm,
and Morpho, an image stabilization firm.
“Ours
is a distinct effort to invest in and provide the expertise from
within Nokia to take a promising technology and grow it
appropriately, and whether Nokia buys the company or not is not a
measure of success,” said Paul Asel, managing partner with NGP. “We
can get value both from liquidity events and from the firms'
contribution to the Nokia platform.”
A
number of NGP's direct and indirect portfolio companies have been
acquired by Nokia including navigation firm gate5 in August 2006;
mobile ad startup Enpocket in September 2007; and software firm
Trolltech in January 2008.