This article gives good insight into a corporate VC still investing big sums in early stages - Nokia Venture Partners.

"So why hasn't Nokia Venture Capital shifted its investment focus along with the times? Are its decision-makers blind to economic change? Stubborn? Faith healers? Try "consistent."

"One example is Cornice, based in Longmont, Colorado, whose current products include a 1-inch, 1.5-gigabyte storage device drive - a tiny hard drive that mobile equipment manufactures can build into PDA's, cameras, phones, music players and any other device that needs large amounts of storage."

i>"Venture capital is an absolutely essential part of innovation," he said. "It is increasingly needed on a global basis." Well, there is nothing to argue about that.