Jeff Herbst (pictured at the GCVI Summit), head of Nvidia GPU Ventures, the corporate venturing unit of US-based chipmaker Nvidia, has left to join venture capitalist Jay Eum in setting up a new firm, GFT Ventures.
GFT, which stands for global frontier technology – such as artificial intelligence, data science, blockchain and robotics – has completed a first close of undisclosed size for a debut fund with a final target of $100m.
Limited partners for the fund include chipmaker SK Hynix, internet group Naver, asset manager Mirae Asset Global Investments and US-based angel investors, in particular reflecting Eum’s connections as a former head of corporate venture capital unit Samsung Ventures and co-founder of VC firm TransLink Capital.
Eum and Herbst co-invested in audio technology developer SoundHound, which raised more than $300m and is valued above $2bn, but have delivered 29% gross annual (called internal) rates of return from their combined 78 deals.
Herbst’s deals at Nvidia through GPU Ventures and its Inception AI acceleration platform involved investments of $111m across 41 companies including autonomous truck developer TuSimple, which floated in April this year delivering a 46-times multiple.
GFT has hired Michal Wolkin, former head of Lear Innovation Ventures, automotive component maker Lear’s investment arm, in Israel, and Jenny Park, previously a principal at VC firm Quest Venture Partners. Israel is expected to make up a fifth of the first fund’s 15 to 20 investments, with the US the remaining 80%.
Herbst, who spoke at this year’s GCV Digital Forum on AI in a fireside chat with George Hoyem from In-Q-Tel, said: “After an amazing 20-year career at Nvidia, I recently left to co-found Global Frontier Technology Ventures with my very good friend, Jay Eum…. We support the best entrepreneurs, solving the hardest problems for the largest markets.”
