Cox Enterprises has a new fund focused on investing broadly in innovation that could help the Atlanta-based conglomerate, according to a Wednesday announcement.
Socium Ventures will look to invest between $3 million and $25 million for companies that are past their Series A round, which often signals that a startup is hitting growth mode and preparing to scale.
Unlike typical venture capital firms, Socium Ventures will not solicit funds from different investors and does not have a timeline for deploying its capital. Cox Enterprises will be its only limited partner. The Socium Ventures' team will work with its portfolio companies to help them grow.
"Socium Ventures is a way for us to invest in new businesses beyond our current operations that have aspirations aligned with our own," said Andrew Davis, senior vice president of strategy and investments and managing partner of Socium, in a statement. "There are many companies with compelling ideas worth exploring, and Socium Ventures will be one of the ways we help scale these innovations to more people and industries."
Cox is the largest private company in Atlanta, according to Atlanta Business Chronicle research. In 2021, it had $20 billion in revenue and 50,000 employees companywide.
The company has two divisions: Cox Automotive, which owns brands such as Autotrader and Kelley Blue Book, and Cox Communications, a broadband company. It also owns the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and new digital media company Axios, which it bought for $525 million last August.
The more than century-old company has made investing in emerging businesses one of its core strategies and aims to be in new industries by 2034, according to its website.
One of Cox's initiatives focuses on clean technology. The goal of the program is to eventually buy the companies with which it invests. For example, Cox bought a majority stake in Atlanta's Nexus Circular, a company that turns landfill-bound plastics back into oil to reuse again.
Cox also looks to to invest in companies in the digital media and public sector spheres.
