Europe's corporate venturers have proved adept at stepping in where business angels fear to tread, just when pure private equity houses have become more concerned with work-outs of existing deals than with new investments.

The most successful of the corporate venturers are proving to be those who adopted a wait-and-see approach and are now taking advantage of the precipitous slide in valuations from the highs of a year ago.

The fall in the values of ventures in the telecom, media and technology (TMT) sector - which underpinned the rapid growth in the market from the end of 1998 to mid-2000 - has swung the pendulum firmly away from company founders and pure venture capitalists in favour of corporate investors.

However, while buyers are scarce and prices cheap, some corporate venturers are still struggling to take a long-term view of the business and, according to some proponents, missing out on the current opportunities.

The TMT sector remains the focus of venturing and the US pioneers of the concept in Europe - such as Intel and Sun Microsystems - continue to drive up the flow of deals in the region, supported by a host of new entrants as diverse as the oil group, Royal Dutch/Shell, publisher Reed Elsevier and Royal 7amp; Sun Alliance, the insurer.

FirstCapital, the UK corporate finance house, tracked the launch of 72 new corporate venture funds in Europe between June last year and January 2001.

The strategic rationale for venturing remains intact in terms of enhancing or replacing research and development capabilities, accessing entrepreneurial flair and reaping the financial rewards from taking the smaller companies to flotation.

Moreover, competition for deals has reduced dramatically as early-mover corporate venturers and VCs manage the slide in the value of their existing portfolios and steer clear of new transactions.

"Valuations are low and later-stage investors have a great deal of leverage again," says Diana Noble, head of the venturing unit at Reed Elsevier which dipped into its £100m fund for the first time in June.

However, the later entrants to the sector are shying away from a buying spree. "Deals that were marginal before (the fall in values) are still marginal," says Scott Moeller, managing director of Deutsche Bank's eVentures unit which launched last year.

He says founders and VCs are much more aware that valuations "are a lot lower than in spring 2000 and aren't coming back soon."

Mr Moeller says that deals are taking longer to close as investors tighten due diligence procedures to take account of the new pricing environment.

Clive Hyman, head of business incubation services at KPMG, compares the state of the venturing market to that in the leveraged buy-out market in the late 1980s. "Reality has come back and cash is king."

While corporate venturers are receiving increased leverage for their investment, this brings with it added responsibilities, according to Denis Champenois, general manager of Innovacom, the venture capital firm allied to France Telecom.

"Corporate investors will have to be able, in terms of financial resources and management capacity, to be lead investors, (which) was not common until now. "Corporate investors need to do more for the development of their portfolio companies. Our experience is that it is a full-time job you need to control in your own venture team."

With many VCs unwilling to take the entire funding rounds which characterised the booming market a year ago, eVentures has taken on more deals in a lead manager role while the size of its partnerships has increased, rising from an average of just one last year to between three and six in 2001.

For those remaining in the market, unexpected benefits continue to emerge. The Deutsche unit focuses only on companies involved in the financial services sector, such as Finnish risk management specialist Trema in which it acquired a 6 per cent stake last November.

The majority of its deals have been internally generated from existing Deutsche clients whose relationship has been expanded to provide services for other parts of the bank. This enhances the value of the investment to eVentures and leverages its strategic benefit.

Mr Moeller says regular meetings with all of its investments have created a more collegiate approach to the strategy of the individual enterprises: five of its 15-strong portfolio are already working together.

While the upside of venturing is becoming apparent to companies they remain less enthusiastic than their US counterparts.

"It's a relatively cheap way to stay in a number of activities," says Bill Cline, managing director at Advent International, a VC which partners many corporate venturing programmes.

He says he is "dismayed" that some companies would choose to step back from venturing with values so low. "If a corporation is still interested in the sector it can step in and save the day," he says.

"Corporates don't understand that this is a 10-year business (and) rarely give it the time it needs to flourish," adds Ms Noble at Reed Elsevier.

Copyright: The Financial Times Limited