Rashmi Gopinath received Global Corporate Venturing’s Rising Star award in 2017, when she was a partner at M12, software producer Microsoft’s corporate venture capital (CVC) vehicle.
As the third hire at the unit after it was founded in early 2016 as Microsoft Ventures, Gopinath was instrumental in getting the fund up and running. She now oversees deals in areas including enterprise software, cloud infrastructure and cybersecurity.
Gopinath was impressed by the Rising Stars awards ceremony and the subsequent Global Corporate Venturing & Innovation (GCVI) Summit conference, remarking: “The event was fantastic. It is amazing to gather everyone from the industry in one place – which is a challenging thing to do.”
She noted that the award gave both herself and M12 greater credibility and visibility. “It is always great to be recognised by peers. Since I received the award in 2017, I have continued to grow at M12,” she added, having been promoted to managing director, closed her 14th deal and achieved two exits.
The exits are Frame, the cloud workspace platform formerly known as Mainframe2, which was bought by cloud computing software provider Nutanix for $165m in August 2018, while cloud cybersecurity software provider Druva acquired her data transfer platform portfolio company CloudLanes in July this year.
She joined forces with Nagraj Kashyap, corporate vice-president and global head of M12, early this year to start exploring the Indian ecosystem. Gopinath identified and backed US-India, cross-border healthcare data platform operator Innovaccer, investing $35m series B funding on behalf of M12.
Microsoft has also taken note of her team’s success through GCV’s platform, and the award is well-received by the CVC industry at large, according to Gopinath, who said: “GCV provides a great platform to recognise and celebrate accomplishments and excellence for CVC investors through the Rising Stars and Emerging Leaders categories.
“I am truly honoured to be an alum of the GCV Rising Star award and look forward to continuing to work with James Mawson and the GCV team on corporate venturing initiatives.”
