Ram Jambunathan has been leading SAP.iO, the corporate venture capital (CVC) subsidiary of Germany-based enterprise software producer SAP, as senior vice-president (SVP) and managing director (MD) since the unit was formed in July 2016.
Jambunathan added the head of corporate strategy role in October 2019 at the parent firm. He said: “As MD of SAP.iO, my responsibilities include the SAP.iO Fund – SAP’s early-stage startup investment fund – and the SAP.iO Foundries, our global network of equity-free startup accelerators.
“Our understanding of where adjacent opportunities and disruption may come is informed by many sources, including the startup ecosystem, and particularly through SAP.iO, SAP’s strategic business unit focused on accelerating innovations and pathfinding new areas relevant to SAP and its customers.”
The SAP.iO Fund invests in business-to-business (B2B) software startups, and has made more than 200 investments to date, while the SAP.iO Foundries are in-residence programs located in 10 global startup hubs. Recent investments have included neural search specialist Jina AI and Zippin, a frictionless check-out solution for retailers.
Earlier in his career, Jambunathan co-founded a fibre-optic infrastructure startup, T-Networks, now part of Broadcom backed by Sequoia, Greylock and USVP. After leaving T-Networks after five and a half years at the end of 2005, Jambunathan became a McKinsey consultant before joining SAP in mid-2009 and working his way up from a value engineering principal. He holds a master’s degree and a PhD in electrical engineering from University of Michigan.
