Rahul Sood is set to leave his position as general manager at Microsoft Ventures, the corporate venturing subsidiary of software producer Microsoft, to launch a new start-up, he announced yesterday.
Sood, ranked at #25 on Global Corporate Venturing’s Powerlist2014 last month, was one of the founders of luxury computer creator VoodooPC before it was acquired by computer manufacturer Hewlett Packard in 2006.
After working as chief technology officer for HP Global Gaming & Advanced Computing for four years, Sood moved to Microsoft to take up a role as general manager in its entertainment business, later acting as general manager for Microsoft’s Bing Fund when it was launched in 2012.
Microsoft merged Bing Fund with its BizSpark innovation programme and its accelerators the following year to form a new entity, Microsoft Ventures, where Sood was a general manager and partner.
Sood revealed in a LinkedIn post yesterday however, that he is leaving the world of corporate venturing for now to launch a new start-up called Unikrn. Although Unikrn is still in stealth mode, Sood hinted that it may operate in the gaming sector.
“Microsoft Ventures is helping start-ups solve many problems around the world,” he said yesterday. “We operate seven amazing accelerators in Bangalore, Beijing, Berlin, London, Paris, Redmond, and Tel-Aviv.
“We are encouraging diversity, we inspire students to consider entrepreneurship, we are helping to build and evolve start-up ecosystems, and we’ve been covered favorably by the press over and over again globally. I can’t tell you how proud I am of the progress we’ve made – it is simply inspiring.”