连锁便利店7-11开始试水风投业务，计划对零售和食品领域的新创企业进行小额投资。

    该项目名为“7-项目”，由长期负责7-11商业拓展的高管拉贾•多达拉领衔。

    多达拉解释说：“我们的商业拓展包括了解新产品、新的零售模式以及有助于提升零售流量和收入的新技术。而很多创新往往源自新创企业。”

    “7-项目”于今夏早些时候正式推出，迄今已进行了两笔投资。

第一笔投资的对象是一家没有透露名称的咖啡公司，旨在助力7-11巩固新鲜食品和饮料业务。

    第二笔投资的对象是位于芝加哥的客户忠诚度和营销平台——Belly公司，后者日前宣布新融得1,210万美元风投资金。除了7-11外，Belly本轮的投资者还包括恩颐投资（New Enterprise Associates）、安德森•霍洛维茨（Andreessen Horowitz）、DAG Ventures、Lightbank以及思科公司（Cisco Systems）。

    多达拉说：“Belly提供数字忠诚度网络，我们想要了解的并不是针对零售行业的忠诚度计划，而是这个网络如何运作。”

    “7-项目”目前尚未确定每年的总投资额为多少，也没有确定每年进行多少笔投资。对于投资回报似乎也没有太大的预期。正如多达拉所言：“这些交易能赚钱是最好了，但这不是我们的首要目标。”（财富中文网）

    译者：项航 

    Convenience store chain 7-Eleven is dipping its toe into the venture capital business, with plans to invest small amounts of money into startups within the retail and food spaces.

    It's called 7-Ventures, and is led by longtime 7-Eleven business development executive Raja Doddala.

    "Part of business development is to learn about new products, new retail models and new technologies that help improve retail traffic and engagement," Doddala explains. "And a lot of that innovation is coming from startups."

    The group formally launched earlier this summer, and so far has made two investments.

    The first was in an undisclosed coffee company, as part of 7-Eleven's efforts to improve its fresh food and beverage business.

    The second is in Belly, a Chicago-based customer loyalty and marketing platform that today is announcing $12.1 million in new VC funding. In addition to 7-Ventures, investors in the Belly round include New Enterprise Associates, Andreessen Horowitz, DAG Ventures, Lightbank and Cisco Systems (CSCO).

    "Belly offers digital loyalty networks, and we want to learn how networks work as opposed to retailer-specific loyalty plans," says Doddala.

    7-Ventures does not yet have formal parameters around how much money it can invest per year, or on a target number of deals. There also do not seem to be major return expectations. Or as Doddala puts it: "Making money from these deals would be nice, but it's not our primary goal."