Nokia to beef up venture fund, expand in China

NEW YORK (AP) — Nokia Corp. is more than doubling the size of its direct venture investment fund with an injection of $150 million, with a view to putting some of the money to use in India and China.

Menlo Park, Calif.-based Nokia Growth Partners was set up in 2004 to directly manage $100 million of Nokia’s money.

Its investments have included Bitboys, a Finnish developer of graphics chips that was bought by ATI in 2006 for $44.5 million, and Global Locate, a U.S. maker of GPS chips that was bought by Broadcom Corp. for at least $146 million last year.

Apart from seeking a financial return, the fund hunts for startups with technologies that are useful to Nokia. Some areas of focus have included mobile payments and camera technology.

Venture funds have become a standard accessory for companies in the cell phone arena, though the approaches vary.

Qualcomm Inc. has a venture fund with a broad portfolio, much like Nokia Growth Partners. Research in Motion Ltd., which makes the BlackBerry, announced in May that it had set up a $150 million fund with outside partners to invest in companies creating software for BlackBerrys and other mobile devices.