Vitaly Golomb, formerly a partner at HP Tech Ventures, the corporate venturing arm of US-headquartered computer and printer maker HP, has taken a position at investment bank IEG.
Golomb will be one of IEG’s 16 managing directors and is also global head of principal investments.
Golomb said by email: “We are building out the US operation on the M&A, capital raise, and [initial coin offering] underwriting advisory and a global group of vertically-focused early stage VC vehicles. Expecting many corporate [limited partners] on the VC side.
A GCV Rising Stars winner in 2017, Golomb joined computer and printer maker HP in March 2016, two months before its split from server and enterprise software producer Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
The demerger allowed HP to form its own corporate venture capital unit, HP Tech Ventures, while the existing team and portfolio, Hewlett Packard Ventures, went with Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
In his Rising Stars profile, Golomb, a member of the supervisory board at trade body the Ukrainian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (UVCA), said: “I have been an entrepreneur my entire career starting from 13 years old.
“Prior to being recruited to help HP build the [corporate venture capital] program, I was working on putting together my own seed fund focused on providing outstanding technical talent in Central and Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia a bridge to Silicon Valley.
“In that effort I also put on Startup AddVenture conferences in seven countries and spoke in over 30 others. Prior to that, I founded and ran a series of three companies [Keen Systems, acquired by Aleyant Systems, Sputnik Integrated and All Digital Printing and Graphics].”
Although he was planning on going forward with his own fund, Golomb said being “offered a unique opportunity to help build the CVC for Silicon Valley’s original startup (Hewlett-Packard was founded in a garage in Palo Alto) from scratch was not something I could pass up”.
However, at that time Golomb admitted HP’s structure was a novelty for him, saying: “This is my first time in a large company in my entire career.
“Though we are a bit insulated, we still inherit lots of bureaucracy and politics which I am honestly not so used to. It is a new muscle that I have to strengthen to get things done.”
The group has indeed closed relatively few direct deals over the past two years, though it did commit an undisclosed amount of capital to virtual reality-focused VC fund Venture Reality Fund in April 2017.