Nokia announces a $100 million fund to invest in automotive technology and services

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Nokia may have_finally_offloaded its device and services division to Microsoft after_its $7.2 billion deal _was completed last month, but it is starting May with an interesting announcement: it is launching a fund that will invest $100 million in connected car technology. The 'Connected Car Fund' fund will be managed by__Nokia Growth Partners (NGP) and "will identify and invest in companies whose innovations will be important for a world of connected and intelligent vehicles," the Finish company says. The fund will be closely aligned with Nokia's HERE mapping division (which it didn't sell to Microsoft), with the aim of finding companies...

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TheNextWeb

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Nokia today announced the launch of 100 million fund for investing in promising auto tech and local services companies in collaboration with HERE through Nokia Growth Partners (NGP). Nokia is already a major player in the automotive industry providing location intelligence for connected vehicles through HERE and also 4 in 5 cars worldwide now runs on HERE location technologies. “NGP has been consistently performing well bringing in both new innovation and financial return to Nokia,” said Rajeev Suri, Nokia President and CEO. “Our new USD 100 million venture fund launched today further underlines our belief that the connected car is a significant growth opportunity where NGP is poised to make great investments.” “For the last few years there has been a surge in innovation that has brought technological advances leading to safer, cleaner, increasingly connected, intelligent and more affordable vehicles. Vehicles are becoming a new platform for technology adoption very similar to phones or tablets,” said Paul Asel, Partner at Nokia Growth Partners. “We are excited to deepen our collaboration...

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Microsoft News

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Even though the Nokia name will (still)_be associated with phone making for years to come, the Finnish company_is also known, albeit to a lesser extent, as a player in the telecommunications equipment and automotive markets, through its NSN and HERE businesses, respectively. And it is now not

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