ORA Orange.

By Adam Clark

French telecommunications company Orange said Monday that it would separate out its venture-capital arm and give it an increased allocation of 350 million euros ($427.7 million).

Orange Ventures will become a separate legal entity and make its investment decisions autonomously, the company said. It will also take over management of Orange Digital Ventures, the company's portfolio of early-stage strategic investments launched in 2015.

"Our wish is to constitute an organization which combines the best of both worlds: Orange's business expertise as well as the agility of decision-making and the quality of the financial monitoring of the best investment funds," said Jerome Berger, president and managing partner of Orange Ventures.

Orange's highest-profile investments include British digital bank Monzo and European savings marketplace Raisin. It invests world-wide with investments of up to EUR20 million in each funding round.

The separation follows a similar move by Spain's Banco Santander SA, which said in September last year that it would launch an autonomously managed venture-capital fund with a doubled allocation of $400 million.

Write to Adam Clark at adam.clark@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 11, 2021 07:44 ET (12:44 GMT)

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