Comcast Ventures, the venture capital fund aimed at supporting and investing in start-up technology companies, will be folded into the media giant’s business development unit, the company said Friday.

Comcast Ventures will continue to operate under business development chief Sam Schwartz and focus on companies that support Comcast initiatives like broadband and streaming video. News of the change was first reported by CNBC. 

“Comcast Ventures has been a valuable innovation pipeline, providing insight into adjacent industries and investment opportunities,” Comcast said in a statement. “We are aligning our approach to venture investing more closely with our business units and repositioning Comcast Ventures and its fund under the strategic business development team at Comcast Cable.  Our business development teams across the company continue to invest in new technology and businesses, which we believe will yield more strategic opportunities and benefits for Comcast and the companies in which we invest.  We will continue to support our existing portfolio companies through investment and strategic partnership.”

Comcast Ventures was formed in 2011 after the combination of Comcast Interactive Capital  and NBCUniversal’s Peacock Equity Fund and has funded a number of startups, including Cheddar (sold to Altice USA in 2019),  shared-ride service Lyft (which went public in 2019) and fantasy sports company FanDuel (sold to Flutter Entertainment in 2018). Its current portfolio includes more than 120 companies ranging from online video platform Vimeo, digital media company Vox Media and content discovery platform Taboola. The unit was headed by Amy Banse, who said in September that she would retire after 30 years with the company.  Banse has agreed to stay as a senior advisor to the company through the end of 2021.  

No. 3 wireless provider T-Mobile said it has launched a new venture capital fund -- T-Mobile Ventures -- aimed at backing early stage companies developing 5G technologies for use on the carrier’s network. 

Portfolio companies in the multi-year fund would also benefit from T-Mobile’s network and infrastructure expertise to develop, test and bring to market their products and services. Initially, T-Mobile said it would target companies in the edge computing, security, future of work and industrial Internet of Things (IoT) spaces for the fund. 

“T-Mobile Ventures is part of our mission to give customers the best 5G network in the country – one that will serve all Americans, stimulate competition and create tremendous economic value,” said Jason Young, senior vice president of Partnerships and T-Mobile Ventures in a press release. “With our 5G network at the foundation, we see massive opportunity across both business and consumer segments, and we’re excited to help fuel the wave of 5G applications coming to market in the years ahead.”

T-Mobile says its 5G network covers more than 260 million people across nearly 1.4 million square miles. After its $26 billion merger with Sprint, the carrier said it is rolling out mid-band 5G with 2.5 GHz spectrum in more than 200 cities and towns across the country. 

“Compelling 5G use cases span the range of spectrum bands from low, mid to high, and only T-Mobile has these assets giving it a 5G network that can support all use cases across every industry,” said Neville Ray, president of Technology at T-Mobile in a press release. “Now is the time for the developers, entrepreneurs and creators to make the magic happen with products and services that will unleash the potential of our 5G network.”

T-Mobile Ventures is working with corporate venture capital firm Touchdown Ventures to help manage the fund. 

HTC is heading up a $10 billion V.C. focused on virtual reality that includes the participation of more than two dozen other companies and partners. 

That group, called the Virtual Reality Venture Capital Alliance, notes on its site that it will offer six opportunities for pitches from startups “from Seed to Pre-IPO companies,” with $10 billion in “total deployable capital” being earmarked. The new, larger group follows the earlier formation of HTC’s Vive X VR accelerator program.

And VR is just a piece of the broader initiative, which will be based in Beijing and San Francisco, and led by two HTC execs – Alvin Wang Graylin, who is the VC’s president, and Michael Lewis, its VP.

“We invest in Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and Mixed reality startups of any size from anywhere around the world,” the site notes. Our network spans the entire globe, so it doesn't matter where you are, as long as you are doing something game-changing, we want to help you realize your dream. We are not searching for the next technology revolution because it is already here. We are searching for the next entrepreneur to lead it.”

The VC will consider investing in a range of verticals, including enterprise, healthcare, education, social, events, gaming, and VR movies, as well as technologies spanning VR tools, platforms, infrastructure/hardware, peripherals, and accessories.

VRVCA also announced its founding members: Blue Run Ventures; Colopl VR Fund; China eCapital; CRCM; CRU Capital; DCM; FreesVC; GGV Capital; Harvest Tech Investments; Hejun Capital; HTC Vive;Hyperion Media Group; Immersion Ventures; Infinity Venture Partners; Innovation Works; Keytone Ventures; Legend Capital; Matrix Partners; Qiming Venture Partners; Redpoint Ventures; Sequoia Capital; Unity VC; The VR Fund; WestSummit Capital; WI Harper; YunFeng Capital; Yunqi Partners; and 500 Startups

VRVCA has also set up a submission page, which says the group will review new entries on a rolling basis.

Elsewhere, HTC, the company behind the new high-end HTC Vive VR platform, is separating its virtual reality division into a wholly owned subsidiary called the HTC Vive Tech Corporation.

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RELATED:'Virtual Reality -- Ready for a Closeup' Webinar, Feb. 24, with Andrew Trickett (Merge VR) and Tony Mugavero (Littlstar), moderated by Next TV editor Jeff Baumgartner

Virtual reality and 360-degree video are currently just a small segment of the market, but they’re gathering plenty of attention, and piles of cold hard cash, from investors looking to place bets on the Next Big Thing.

The good news for VR is that the segment is teeming with startups that have built or are developing products and content for a market that, by some estimates, is poised to explode. Goldman Sachs thinks VR and AR (augmented reality) could generate up to $182 billion in revenue (content, software and hardware) by 2025, and eclipse TV revenue.

Some large companies have already placed sizable bets. Facebook paid $2 billion for Oculus, a company at the forefront of the market. Microsoft has been spending heavily and getting lots of buzz for an augmented reality initiative that centers on the HoloLens. Secretive AR/VR startup Magic Leap recently raised a monster-sized $800 million “C” round.

And we’re still waiting to find out what Apple’s play will be. CEO Tim Cook said on the company’s earnings call last month that he doesn’t view VR as a geeky niche. “It’s really cool and has some interesting applications,” he said, an indication that Apple won’t be sitting on the sidelines for long.

VR has also attracted attention from the pay TV industry. Comcast Ventures, Comcast’s VC arm, has announced investments in three startups focused on VR content and technology: AltSpaceVR, NextVR and Baobab Studios, a company specializing in animated virtual reality content.

“We’re excited about virtual reality as well as augmented reality,” Gavin Teo, a principal at Comcast Ventures said. “Going forward, we’re going to continue to invest in this space.”

Comcast Ventures hasn’t said where else in the sector it might splash some cash, but cinematic virtual reality and gaming are two content genres the VC firm could explore in 2016 and 2017, Teo said.

VR market growth will mirror that seen by mobile, Teo said, because it’s tapping into such existing distribution forms as over-the-top video and mobile app stores. The next question is how the storytelling and content-creation tools will evolve for filmmakers and game creators.

“I think 2015 was the year that the technology got there,” he said. “It was a good [year] for camera hardware and transport hardware. 2016 will be the year where you start to see consumer adoption of headsets.”

VR appears poised to go mass market in 2017 or 2018, he said. “But I think there is a market today, and business models are starting to take shape.”

The Gear VR and Google Cardboard viewers are already available, while more advanced platforms such as Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Sony PlayStation VR will hit the market later this year.

Privately funded Merge Labs released its foam-based, $99 Merge VR viewer in November 2015. It hopes to draw a mass audience, but is keeping its future financial plans under wraps. The company has received “a bit of interest from traditional investors and private-equity investors” pursuing the VR sector, company co-founder Andrew Trickett said. “We’ll keep trucking along and executing with our heads down. We’ll consider them [funding opportunities] as they come in front of us.”

Merge Labs isn’t releasing sales data, but “we have demand exceeding supply … We’re also getting swamped [with inquiries] from brick-and-mortar stores. They are seeing that VR is going to be hot.”