T-Venture restructures

T-Venture, the corporate venturing arm of Deutsche Telekom has been restructured to align its investments with its parent’s strategic divisions: T-Mobile, T-Online, T-Systems and T-Com. T-Venture has already established two €100 million funds, T-Mobile Venture Fund and T-Online Venture Fund. Launched in October 1997 T-Venture has a total financing volume of €500 million available to make direct investments and indirect investments in other European venture capital funds.

Synergies with Deutsche Telekom’s activities are now becoming the main criterion governing T-Venture’s start-up investments. T-Venture invests in innovative and high-growth service and high-tech companies in the TIMES markets: telecoms, IT, mobile communications, multimedia, electronic business and security solutions. T-Venture has branches and partners in Europe, the US, Asia and Israel.

Investment managers at T-Venture screen candidate companies in close co-operation with experts from the respective Deutsche Telekom group before making commitments. The final investment decision is made by the respective fund’s investment committee, which includes board members of the corresponding Deutsche Telekom division. Dr Thomas Kühr, chairman of T-Venture’s executive management, said: “With our new strategy, we are creating another important opportunity for the Deutsche Telekom group’s divisions to gain early access to relevant innovations in different technological sectors.”

Dr Klaus Radermacher has been appointed to the executive management of T-Venture and as chief technology officer is responsible for restructuring the existing portfolio and for the implementation of the new strategy. His role includes ensuring T-Venture’s investments open up synergies with Deutsche Telekom’s core businesses and that know-how is transferred into the group. “The companies in which this money is invested also benefit considerably from the close links between our venture-capital commitment and the business plans of the group’s divisions,” said Radermacher. Investee companies will gain access to Deutsche Telekom’s high-performance market areas and benefit from the group’s expertise as they enter the market and build up their market position.