Last week San Diego hosted a significant part of the venture industry, with Intel Capital and Qualcomm Ventures, the corporate venturing units of the US-based semiconductor companies, as well as the National Venture Capital Association hosting consecutive events.
The more than 1100 attendees at Intel Capital’s summit [photos here] were afforded an insight into Intel Capital’s strategic priorities now its parent company is led by new chief executive, Brian Krzanich.
Arvind Sodhani, head of Intel Capital, told reporters: “We are very excited to have Brian as the new CEO. He has led the charge on wearables, which is his initiative.”
Krzanich told attendees that he was” a big fan” of the conference and outlined his support for Intel Capital’s strategy of helping the growth in the ecosystem for Intel’s products, as well as providing technologies which Intel can use.
The Qualcomm and NVCA events were under the Chatham House Rule, which means who said what cannot be reported, but there was a lively buzz at the two events about how corporate venturing is here to stay and likely to grow significantly.
At the Intel summit, Sodhani used a fireside chat with television programme Bloomberg West’s Cory Johnson to showcase some of the company’s wearable technology portfolio companies, such as that of Recon Instruments (see photo) and Sotera Wireless (see photo).
Sodhani said: “The reason why we are very excited about this is because there is not only the silicon opportunity. We announced the Quark [a chip for wearables] last month, and, of course, Quark will go into all these wearables. But the great thing about these things is they are generating a lot of data. All that data goes through, obviously, your smartphone, your tablet, your ultrabook, your two-in-one into the server into the cloud and, of course, storage and networking and all of those wonderful things.”
Intel Capital’s musician speaker Will.i.am had a particularly entertaining take on the future of wearables, which he said was not Google Glass, but that: “Everyone will be walking around with helmets on. We are all going to be like Darth Vader.”
The conference was used to reveal 16 new portfolio company investments worth $65m. The chief executives of the companies were largely positive about working with Intel Capital, with Gilles Raymond, chief executive of Mobiles Republic, saying his round “was the fastest fundraising I have ever done”, while one executive mentioned he liked the personal involvement of Sodhani in the late stages of his deal. However, another CEO complained Intel Capital had been tough on terms and valuation, although was also largely positive in his comments.
Look out for our November issue of the magazine next month, to read an extract of Sodhani’s talk with Cory Johnson and see assorted interviews with various of Intel Capital’s managing directors talking about the key trends in their sectors and regions.