The future of AMP's corporate venture fund is up in the air as the wealth giant conducts a strategic review of the unit, sources told Street Talk.
AMP New Ventures invests in, and partners with, early-stage technology businesses building "transformative or disruptive" technologies and business models in financial services and adjacent markets, according to its website.
It has five core employees and several support staff and is led by Alfred Lo, who joined AMP in 2015 as head of AMP New Ventures after a stint in charge of Singtel Innov8's corporate venture capital activities in Australia.
An AMP spokesman said: "AMP is reviewing the structure of its New Ventures team. The review aligns with the group's focus on its core businesses to drive short-term performance.
"The outcome of the review is yet to be finalised."
It would be a quick about turn by AMP if it were to unwind the operation. Last year, AMP New Ventures took equity stakes in Macrovue and MoneyBrilliant, two fintech start-ups.
The deals were the first by AMP New Ventures which had plans to invest millions more dollars into start-ups to defend AMP from the forces of digital disruption.
Macrovue was founded by Sid Sahgal and Devanjan Sinha, both formerly quant analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. From Sydney's new fintech hub Stone & Chalk, the company is building an online platform to make it easy for self-managed super funds to access global equity markets by offering thematic investing plans.
MoneyBrilliant, which was founded by Peter Lord, a former IAG and AMP employee, is a budget management platform that provides users with profiles of spending patterns to help them manage money and improve financial literacy.
