Jihad Salahuddin is a long-time Caterpillar employee, with more than 26 years at the company. He has worked in almost every part of the business, from engineering to manufacturing, logistics, marketing, new product introduction and strategy.
“I built a reputation internally as someone who understood Caterpillar’s business model and knew what would be a good strategic fit. I leveraged these experiences coming into the venture role,” says Salahuddin.
After completing a venture capital programme at Wharton School of Business at the University
of Pennsylvania, Salahuddin worked with company executives to refocus Caterpillar’s investment strategy around sustainability and decarbonisation. His investment themes include electric vehicles and electrification, energy storage, alternative fuels and autonomy.
“We need to build a wide portfolio of options for our customers because there is never going
to be a one-size-fi ts all,” he says.
“I built a reputation internally as someone who understood Caterpillar’s business model and knew what would be a good strategic fit”
It is crucial for corporate investors to have a good understanding of business unit strategy,” says Salahuddin. “Once you have that good foundation, that helps to direct the right deal flow and to make the right connections,” he says.
He has deployed more than $120m in capital to date. Under his stewardship Caterpillar Ventures has made a record number of investments in the past couple of years.
“His efforts are making a dramatic impact in the startup ecosystem and within Caterpillar,” says
Mark Crawford, head of Caterpillar Ventures.
Success stories include Lithos Energy, a California startup making lithium-ion batteries
for mining applications. Not only is Caterpillar an investor, but the two companies have a deep
commercial collaboration.
This year, Caterpillar Ventures will look for more investments in Europe. Around 80% of the portfolio is in the US; Salahuddin would like to change that.
See the full list of GCV Rising Stars for 2024 here.