Intel Capital is focusing on the expanding data ecosystem, investing $60 million in new investments into 15 startups that capture, manage, secure or analyze data.
The venture arm of Intel has also expanded its investments into companies led by women and minorities.
The investments were announced at the organization’s first-ever Intel Capital CEO Showcase in San Francisco on Oct. 19, by Intel Capital President Wendell Brooks.
The investments align with Intel’s core vision as it expands its focus on data, said Brooks, who noted that more than 40 percent or $26 billion of the company’s revenue comes from data-centric business.
“As Intel transitions to a data company, Intel Capital is actively investing in startups across the technology spectrum that can help expand the data ecosystem,” Brooks said.
As technologies like autonomous cars gain traction, the amount of data produced will skyrocket, Brooks said. Intel’s technologies power the processing and storage to back up that data, leading to a “virtuous cycle of growth.”
The company introduced the 15 new portfolio companies and their CEOs at the showcase. Amenity Analytics, Bigstream, LeapMind, and Synthego focus on analyzing data, and AdHawk Microsystems, Trace, Bossa Nova Robotics, and EchoPixel work on capturing it. Horizon Robotics, Reniac, and TileDB manage data, and Alcide, Eclypsium, Intezer, and Synack work to secure it.
The new raft of investments brings Intel Capital’s total new investments this year to 32, and the amount of equity invested to more than $566 million. In the last two years, it has cut back on the pace of its investing to focus on bringing portfolio companies to market. In 2015, the company made 63 new investments, but decreased that number to 34 last year.
The new deals come as Intel Capital refocuses its investments strategy, now leading more than 70 percent of its new investments, Brooks said. In the past two years, 60 percent of the company’s new investments were early stage.
Portfolio companies that have gone public has also increased to six this year up from two last year, Brooks said.
Intel Capital also announced that its investments in companies led by women and groups underrepresented in the technology industry has increased, two years after the launch of the Intel Capital Diversity Initiative. In the first half of 2017, 20 percent of its investments went to such companies, up from 6 percent in 2015.
Photo of Wendell Brooks speaking at the Intel Capital CEO Showcase in San Francisco, Oct. 19, 2017, courtesy of Intel Capital
If you do not receive this within five minutes, please try and sign in again. If the problem persists, please
email: