Angie Grimm has left her role as managing partner and head of IBM Ventures, a role she has held since 2019. Grimm leaves just prior to IBM Ventures announcing a new $500m fund that will invest in AI startups, from early-stage to hyper-growth.
The AI fund is an initiative Grimm is excited to see IBM announce, given the company’s legacy. IBM was one of the early pioneers of artificial intelligence, with its Watson computer system launched in 2010. Grimm launched IBM’s first Watson Investment Fund to seed the AI ecosystem in 2014. More recently the company’s venture capital arm has backed AI companies such as Hugging Face, the open source platform for the machine learning community and HiddenLayer, the machine learning security company.
Grimm, who had been at IBM since 2003, looks to remain active in AI, and do more in sustainability. She had also been working on creating a system of “venture champions” that would bring theme-based sector specialists from across IBM business units to work more closely with the corporate venturing team. Sustainability was one of her focus areas.
She plans to continue in her role as an advisory board member of the GCV Global Industry Sustainability Council, and is also working with FIF Collective, an invite-only networking group of founders, investors and senior leaders in sectors such as tech, financial services, energy and utilities, where she will support the “Females in Finance” initiative and take on the role of head of sustainability. She has launched the FIF Collective Green Edition as part of her next chapter.
By Maija Palmer
Maija Palmer is editor of Global Venturing and puts together the weekly email newsletter (sign up here for free).
