US-based computing hardware producer Dell Technologies unveiled its corporate venture capital unit, Dell Technologies Capital, yesterday along with 50 current portfolio companies.
Dell Technologies Capital was formed “a few years ago,” according to a press release, and it has since backed some 70 startups. It functions as the successor to Dell Ventures, the strategic investment fund formed by its parent company in 1999.
Headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices in Boston and Israel, Dell Technologies Capital comprises a 10-person team headed by Scott Darling, president of the division.
Darling was also president of EMC Corporate Development and Ventures, the corporate venturing subsidiary of data storage technology provider EMC. Dell closed the $67bn acquisition of EMC in September 2016 at which point he moved across to Dell Technologies Capital.
The unit’s brief involves making investments in technology relevant to Dell and its subsidiaries, which include EMC, cloud and virtualisation software producer VMware, cybersecurity company RSA and software services provider Pivotal.
In practice those areas equate to software-defined networking, management and orchestration, data storage, cybersecurity, cloud computing, the internet of things, big data and analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence technology.
Dell Technologies Capital’s portfolio consists of legacy companies from Dell Ventures and EMC as well as newer investments, and includes e-signature technology provider DocuSign, database software developer MongoDB and cybersecurity software producer Zscaler.
The unit’s website lists 27 exits since 2012, when Apple bought flash memory technology producer Anobit Technologies for $450m. Other exits include flash memory company Virident, purchased by Western Digital Technologies for $685m in 2013, and cloud infrastructure technology provider Joyent, which was acquired by Samsung in June 2016.
Scott Darling said: “Capital is merely table stakes to set a startup company on the path to success. New companies are looking for active investment partners who provide breadth and depth of expertise and access to resources and scale.
“Dell Technologies Capital is comprised of a team of highly experienced investors with an extensive network of industry contacts to help our portfolio companies achieve escape velocity. We have been making these investments in stealth mode for a number of years and are accelerating our pace of investments.”