Scott Darling has led Dell Technologies Capital (DTC), the venture capital arm of Dell Technologies, since September 2016. Under his direction, the venture team now invests up to $200m annually, leading early-stage rounds in companies that are building next-generation enterprise technologies in sectors including cybersecurity, infrastructure, data and analytics, edge and logistics, and silicon.
To date, the team has invested in more than 175 companies, nine of which have gone public and more than 80 that have been acquired.
A highlight for Darling and DTC was the $250m series A funding round for Rivos. DTC was an early investor in the chipmaker, which was previously in stealth mode and which is planning to take on Nvidia in the production of RISC-V capable of running the large language models required for generative AI.
“The team has invested in more than 175 companies, nine of which have gone public and more than 80 that have been acquired”
Other notable investments include G2 Reverse Logistics, which helps companies with the logistics related to business and retail returns. DTC has also invested in a number of security companies, including LayerX Security.
Exits in the past year include Oxeye, an AI-powered security company, which was acquired by GitLab, and Lightspin, the Israeli cloud security company acquired by Cisco.
Before Dell, Darling was president of corporate development and ventures at EMC, which was merged into Dell in a $67bn deal in 2016, after which Darling took up his current role. Before EMC, Darling had a five-year stint at venture capital firm Frazier Technology Ventures.
Darling’s corporate venturing and technology roots stretch back further, having originally joined chip maker Intel in 1990. Darling switched from marketing to Intel Capital in 2000, before leaving for Frazier in 2007.
Darling studied computer science and economics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and holds an MBA from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.
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