"We wanted to increase our West Coast presence in Silicon Valley and focus on high-growth areas. Technology is being developed all over the world, but we wanted to have more smart eyes and ears in Silicon Valley and the venture group gives us that," said Anthony Sanzio, a company spokesman.
The venture arm - Kodak Venture - invests in digital imaging technology, multimedia applications and digital device companies. Some of its recent investments include Dataplay, which developed digital storage media technology for portable Internet devices. Kodak Venture last week announced a US$5 million investment in Dataplay and US$2.4 million in YesVideo, a multimedia services company that allows customers to take their videotape to retail outlets or malls and have it transferred to CDs and DVDs.
Although some of the previous investments made by Eastman Kodak have run into some problems, the bulk of the portfolio is largely unaffected by the market's downturn.
"We don't have the problems of Intel and others that invested billions of dollars at the top of the market. Since we started our fund in October, we didn't buy into a lot of the problems others are now having," Lewis said. "It's a great opportunity to start a fund now. It's about 75 percent cheaper to invest in companies than it was a year ago," said Ted Lewis, senior vice president and director of digital business development for Eastman Kodak.
And while a number of other corporations are pulling back on investing in start-ups, Eastman Kodak plans to spend the same amount it has in previous years, Lewis said. The company plans to allocate US$100 million to its venture arm.
