Diana Noble, 38, is a venture capitalist with a background in funding a wide range of businesses from management buy-outs to fast growth new media and technology companies. She spent 12 years at Schroder Ventures, where she became a Partner at 27 and also managed the raising of Europe’s first $1 billion private equity fund. Following this, she became the founder UK CEO of eVentures, the joint venture between News Corp and SOFTBANK.
Reed Elsevier Ventures will make investments in technology and internet related businesses where a relationship with Reed Elsevier can help to enhance the investee company’s route towards IPO. The fund will focus on later stage and pre-IPO companies, primarily in the US and Europe, in Reed Elsevier’s key strategic sectors. These include:
Technology that allows the delivery of Reed Elsevier’s content to the workplace in a more relevant, speedy, convenient or richer format, for example: navigation tools, digital rights management, performance enhancement or increased mobility;
Horizontal applications or tools applicable across all Reed Elsevier’s vertical markets such as e-marketing or recruitment tools;
Vertical product enhancements to give customers improved functionality in Reed Elsevier’s key sectors: legal, science/medical, construction, entertainment, manufacturing, electronics and retail.
Commenting on the launch of the fund Diana Noble Reed Elsevier Ventures, Managing Director, said:
I am extremely excited by the opportunity to develop a corporate venturing model at Reed Elsevier. The company combines breadth of business across sectors and geographically with strength of market position in its key verticals. This should be a magnet for emerging companies with best of breed technologies and workplace applications, wanting partners who can accelerate their market adoption as well as invest capital.
