Oracle to boost venture capital fund

Oracle said it has put additional funds aside to invest in new high-tech start-ups though the company's own venture capital group. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison said the fund, to which Oracle allocated $100 million in January to invest in small technology companies, will be depleted by June. "Our intention is to be a bit more aggressive, increasing the size of our investments and the number of investments,'' Ellison told shareholders at the company's annual meeting. Already, one of Oracle's early investments paid huge dividends when Linux publisher Red Hat Linux went public in March. Oracle's VC group has already made investments in about a dozen companies. Oracle is likely to increase the size of its average individual investment to $5 million to $10 million from the current average of $1 million to $2 million.