Balaji Gopinath and Ron Yerkes left SAP.IO, Germany-based enterprise software provider SAP’s corporate venturing fund, at the end of 2018 to launch a venture capital firm called Twelve Venture Capital.
Gopinath joined SAP.IO Fund as global vice-president following its formation in March 2017 and Yerkes was hired as a director six months later.
Yerkes was involved in startup engagement for the unit while Gopinath conducted seed and series A deals in the artificial intelligence, blockchain, big data, industrial internet-of-things and business-to-business (B2B) sectors.
Gopinath also helped set up SAP.IO Foundries, an accelerator that works with more than 50 B2B-oriented startups per year across the cities of Paris, Berlin, Munich, Tel Aviv, Tokyo, Singapore, New York and San Francisco.
Twelve Venture Capital will place emphasis on the southern, southeastern and midwestern regions of the United States according to PE Hub. Gopinath and Yerkes did not respond to a request for comment.
Photo of Balaji Gopinath courtesy of LinkedIn.
