• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, November 8, 2016

Google now tops the list of the most active corporate venture capitalists (CVCs) making investments during the first half of 2016, according to one firm tracking investments.

CB Insights put together a list of the most active corporate venture capital firms globally in 2016. In that list, Google Ventures tops the list at No. 1, followed by Intel Capital at No. 2; Comcast Ventures, No. 3; Salesforce Ventures, No. 4; Cisco Investments, No. 5; and GE Ventures, No. 6.

Qualcomm Ventures and Pfizer Venture Investments are tied for No. 7, and Bloomberg Beta and CyberAgent Ventures are tied for No. 9.

The list of the top 50 also includes Verizon Ventures, Rakuten Ventures, and Microsoft Ventures.

CB Insights estimates that 53 new corporate VC units globally made their first investment in the first half of 2016, including firms such as General Mills Ventures and NBC Sports Ventures.

Google Ventures also topped the list in 2014, but relinquished the No. 1 spot to Intel Capital in 2015. Following Intel Capital among the top 10 most active CVCs in 2015 were Google Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, GE Ventures, Samsung Ventures, Comcast Ventures, F-Prime Capital, Bloomberg Beta, Cisco Investments, respectively.

Some 76 CVCs made investments in seed-stage companies in the first half of 2016, which puts 2016 on track for a record in new CVCs, as well as CVC investment at the seed stage.

During the first half of 2016, dollar funding from CVC deals rose 3% compared with the same period in 2015, but the deals involving corporate VC fell 6%. CVCs participated in a range of deals totaling more than $100 million, including those to Lu.com, Magic Leap, Oscar Health Insurance, Slack Technologies and many others, according to CB Insights' report titled The H1 2016 Corporate Venture Capital Report.