(Update: Turns out the fund's final size is $125 million)
|
SAP, the German software giant that is going head-to-head with Oracle, is creating a $100 million venture fund called the NetWeaver Fund.
The goal is to ally with certain big-name venture capital firms in the valley, to drum up interest in SAP's ecosystem, specifically SAP's NetWeaver platform.
NetWeaver is a Web-based platform that can be used to develop not only SAP applications but others as well, and is SAP's way to try to co-opt competitors such as Oracle and IBM.
We've heard that it is not a legal entity like a traditional venture capital firm, but that its deals will be funded out of SAP's corporate development funds.
SAP might announce it next week at their user conference. Interestingly, though, it will apparently be run out of Philadelphia, not Silicon Valley -- a bit odd. We are checking for more details.
(Thanks to Merc colleague Therese Poletti for the scoop, which she got while working the phones for an upcoming Oracle story.)