SoftBank and WeWork cast the biggest shadow, but the year saw a raft of huge corporate-backed IPOs while fintech and Latin America each had a big 12 months.
The end of a decade is typically a time to take stock, and so perhaps it’s fitting that at the tail end of 2019 the corporate venture capital scene is entering an uncertain time that feels like the end of an era, leaving the road open to a new phase.
In 2018’s round up the lead story was of course the growth of SoftBank’s Vision Fund, which had dominated the VC space like no other investor before. Vision Fund began this year in buoyant spirits, continuing its spending spree with large-scale investments in satellite technology provider OneWeb and online insurance portal Lemonade.
That buoyancy continued through July when Vision Fund announced that it had secured memoranda of understanding for $108bn in investment for its second fund, with corporates Apple and Foxconn among the prospective investors.
Clouds had been emerging however, with reports that sovereign wealth funds…
