Lak Ananth (pictured) has left US-based enterprise IT company Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) to join Germany-based conglomerate Siemens and will be managing partner of its €1bn ($1.1bn) Next47 corporate venturing unit from November 14.
Ananth, ranked 21st in the Global Corporate Venturing Powerlist 2016, will report to Joe Kaeser, Siemens’ CEO. He said: “As a Siemens subsidiary, we have both an external and an internal vision.
“The external vision is to be the world’s premium address for ventures between corporates and startups, as well as a role model for open innovation. The internal vision is to shape Siemens’ core businesses of tomorrow.
“A decisive factor will be the team’s ability to find opportunities and engage with the Siemens ecosystem….we have the ability to form a great business from just an idea in a short time. For instance, we have enabled a robotics business to develop eight generations of hardware within less than a year. We can offer access to some of the world’s most sought-after clients, including Siemens.”
Prior to heading Next47, Ananth developed and built up the Hewlett Packard Pathfinder organisation, bringing together innovation strategy, venture investments, acquisitions and partnerships.
Ray Schuder, partner at Pathfinder, formerly known as Hewlett Packard Ventures, who was ranked 10th as a GCV Rising Star 2016, will run deals for HPE.
Before joining HP, Ananth worked in strategy and corporate development at Cisco Systems and was instrumental in the $2.9bn acquisition of Starent Networks, the $1.2bn acquisition of Meraki, and an investment in Control4.
Siemens will invest an additional €1bn ($1.1bn) in disruptive technology companies through Next47 (a reference to 1847 – the year Siemens was founded) out of offices in Berkeley, California, Shanghai, China, and Munich, Germany.
Siemens already operated the Siemens Venture Capital (SVC) unit and the STB accelerator, which have so far jointly invested nearly €500m.
Next47 will invest in innovative technology in sectors relevant to Siemens such as decentralised electrification, artificial intelligence, autonomous machines, networked mobility and blockchain-equipped data transfer technology.
The capital will be committed over a five-year period and Next47 will consider investments in businesses helmed by its own employees as well as external startups and established companies interested in developing technology within the unit’s areas of interest.
In June, when announcing the planned launch of Next47, Siemens chief technology officer Siegfried Russwurm said: “Next47 will provide the freedom to experiment and grow – without the organisational restrictions of a large company.
“Our new unit will rigorously pursue Siemens’ strategy and enable us to tap into disruptive ideas in our core areas of electrification, automation and digitalisation.”
Next47’s first project will be a joint venture with aerospace company Airbus to develop hybrid electric propulsion systems that can be used in small planes and medium-sized passenger aircraft.
The initiative, which stems from an agreement formed between Siemens and Airbus in April this year, is expected to demonstrate the technical feasibility of the technology by 2020.