Siemens, the German electronics group, is reorganising its venture capital units into a single entity, led by Bjoern Christensen, who will replace Dirk Lupberger as the new managing director.

The integration of the units under the Siemens Venture Capital banner comes at a difficult time for the corporate venturing market. The economic downturn and dot-com bust has caused corporate venturing in the US to plummet 90% this year, according to the PricewaterhouseCoopers MoneyTree survey, in partnership with VentureOne. Europe is expected to follow a similar pattern.