Telstra (ASX: TLS) is considering selling its stakes in Telstra Ventures’ investments following the fund manager changing its name to Titanium Ventures.
Telstra Ventures was launched as Telstra’s corporate venture capital arm in 2011, the company’s second iteration of the strategy.
In mid-2018, Telstra partnered with global private markets investment firm HarbourVest to form a new venture capital fund manager.
Telstra Ventures’ investments seeded the new portfolio while HarbourVest provided an initial $75 million capital injection.
Since its inception, Telstra Ventures had always invested more widely than might have been expected of the corporate venture arm of a telecommunications business. After the firm was re-structured as a partnership with HarbourVest, it continued to invest widely across technology and innovation.
Announcing the name change on 25 June, Titanium Ventures said the firm’s team and investment thesis would remain the same.
“Titanium Ventures will continue to identify and scale the most promising companies across a variety of AI, digital and software sectors by complementing its strong, experienced team with proprietary data science insights and its revenue acceleration platform,” it said.
The firm has almost $US1 billion ($1.49 billion) in funds under management across three funds, the last closed in 2022; it has taken minority positions in 99 companies of which 12 have progressed to IPOs, 17 have reached unicorn status and 42 have gone through liquidity events.
The liquidity events, which included Auth0, BigCommerce, Box, Crowdstrike, DocuSign, GitLab, OpenGov, Snap and Whispir, returned $US678 million cash to investors.
To date, the Telstra Ventures revenue acceleration platform has driven more than $US580 million in revenue for portfolio companies, according to Titanium Ventures.
San Francisco-based managing partner Mark Sherman said the new brand was a natural progression as the team [which also has offices in Sydney, Melbourne and London] has been operating as an independent global venture capital investment firm since 2018.
“Today we have more than 50 LPs [limited partners] and have refined our identity and what we represent. We look forward to continuing to work with Telstra on a commercial basis to generate more revenue for our portfolio companies. It’s business as usual,” he said.
Sydney-based managing partner Matthew Koertge said the name Titanium Ventures had been chosen “because it best represents who we are and who we want to be – a firm that backs very strong, resilient entrepreneurs who resist cracking under pressure”.
“Titanium has the highest durability and strength-to-weight ratio of any metal in the world and, like the leaders we invest in, we punch way above our weight,” he said.
“This is an exciting next chapter in our story,” he added. “Titanium Ventures will accelerate the extraordinary, fueling the growth of standout disruptors, that’s what we have done for over a decade and that’s what our investors and founders expect us to do in the decades to come.”
Telstra chief financial officer Michael Ackland said: “Consistent with our focus on capital discipline and active portfolio management, we are exploring options to sell our current investments in Telstra Ventures’ funds. We believe that through the relationships we have fostered over the years, we can continue working together and Telstra will be able to access leading edge technologies in the portfolio companies of Titanium Ventures.”
Image: Telstra chief financial officer Michael Ackland.