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Nokia Prepares More Investment Funds
(31 Jul 2008, BWCS Staff)Finnish handset maker Nokia has announced plans to increase its investments in emerging markets. In particular, the mobile phone giant says it will target expansion in China and India. The company said today that it will more than double the size its direct venture investment fund by pouring a further US$150 million into it.
Nokia Growth Partners, headquartered in California, was set up four years ago to directly invest US$100 million of Nokia's money. So far the investment arm has backed Bitboys, the Finnish graphic developer and Global Locate, a US GPS chip maker that was bought by Broadcom Corp for around US$145 million in 2007.
The investment fund seeks out start-up companies developing technologies that are deemed to be of interest to, or useful to Nokia. Recent areas of focus have included mobile payments, graphics and camera technology.
US chip-maker Qualcomm has developed a similar venture fund to Nokia boasting a broad portfolio of investments and Blackberry maker, Research in Motion, announced in May that it too had set up a US$150 million fund with outside partners to invest in companies creating software for BlackBerrys and other mobile devices. Not to be left out, Apple is planning to set up a US$100 million "iFund" for the development of iPhone and iPod Touch applications.
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