Matthew Carbonara, formerly a senior director at corporate venturing unit Cisco Investments, joined Citi Ventures, the strategic investment arm of US-based financial services firm Citi, as managing director last month.
Carbonara will oversee Citi Ventures’ investments in companies focusing on areas such as enterprise IT, security, data analytics and machine learning.
Cisco Investments, US-based networking equipment producer Cisco’s corporate venturing vehicle, hired Carbonara in August 2016 as a senior director, and he led venture investments and acquisitions in the internet-of-things, collaboration and enterprise networking sectors.
During his time at the unit, Carbonara sourced acquisitions such as communication and workplace collaboration software provider BroadSoft and artificial intelligence technology developer MindMeld. Its investments included human resources software developer Ascendify and digital farming technology developer Prospera.
However, Carbonara’s connection to Cisco stretches back to the two years he spent in corporate development at the company from 2011. He helped Cisco acquire and invest in companies in the data centre, networking, storage and virtual desktop infrastructure spaces.
Carbonara then spent nearly three years as a principal at Comcast Ventures, the corporate venturing subsidiary of mass media group Comcast, focusing on investments in data centre, big data analytics and cloud computing technology developers.
Carbonara started his career as a venture capitalist in 2001 at venture capital firm TeleSoft Partners, where he was managing director for almost a decade.
– Photo of Matthew Carbonara courtesy of LinkedIn.
