Coca-Cola Amatil, Artesian Venture create fund for start-up firms

Coca-Cola Amatil (CCA), bottler of non-alcoholic ready-to-drink beverages in the Asia-Pacific region, has announced that its corporate venturing platform Amatil X has partnered with Artesian Venture Partners to establish a multi-million dollar fund.

Amatil X Early Stage Venture Fund will focus and support early-stage start-ups with the potential to deliver customer value while boosting CCA’s capabilities and support the company in exploring growth opportunities.

CCA Group partners and growth director Chris Sullivan said: “One focus of Amatil X is to invest in platforms that allow our current and future customers to optimise their business and increase sales.

“Artesian are recognised experts in identifying and recommending high-quality early-stage start-ups for investment. We’re proud to partner with them in growing start-up ecosystems and scouting for business opportunities for the future.”

The non-alcoholic ready-to-drink beverages bottler added that its fund would make minority investments in the early-stage start-ups, being managed by Artesian.

The Amatil X Early Stage Venture Fund will be financed through existing resources allocated to the Amatil X programme.

Artesian Venture Partners managing partner Jeremy Colless said: “Artesian’s Venture Capital as a Service (VCaaS)platform provides Amatil X with the scalable resources and expertise required to filter and select the best early-stage start-ups across Amatil’s territories.

“By investing in a portfolio of best-of-breed early-stage start-ups, Amatil X has access to a pre-screened and de-risked pipeline from which they may choose to make strategic, later-stage investments.

“The Amatil X and Artesian partnership addresses the dynamics of a new wave of corporate innovation activity that requires access to the pipeline of distributed R&D activity being undertaken by thousands of early-stage start-ups operating across the region.”

In April, Coca-Cola Amatil’s venture capital platform, Amatil X launched its operations in Indonesia to support local food and beverage start-ups.