Megumi Ikeda, general manager of Europe and managing director of Hearst Ventures, the corporate venturing unit of the US-based publisher, covered the start of the first dot.com bubble as a journalist before moving into corporate development and, in the past decade, as a venture investor.
Based in the UK for Hearst Ventures since 2014, her first big deal was Signal Media, the UK-based creator of an artificial intelligence-equipped information platform, which raised £5.8m ($7.4m) in series A funding at the end of 2016 from investors including media groups Hearst and RelX.
Ikeda previously ran the European arm of the Peacock Equity Fund, GE Capital and NBCUniversal’s $250m corporate venture capital fund. Before that, she worked in corporate M&A and distribution deals at NBCUniversal.
When named a Rising Star in 2018, Ikeda said it had been rewarding to be in corporate venturing. She said: “When done properly – and it is a complex endeavour – CVC can be highly effective. I like the idea of harnessing the power and expertise of a large organisation like Hearst to support a startup, while simultaneously gaining insight into trends and new technologies via investments.
“From a startup’s point of view, because we have a single limited partner – Hearst – and do not have to go out and raise funds every few years, we can have a far better alignment of interests with entrepreneurs.”
Ikeda received her undergraduate degree from Columbia College, Columbia University, and earned her MBA at University of California Los Angeles’ Anderson School.
