The move to bring Intel Capital under the control of the head of Intel’s mergers and acquisitions group looks set to have ramifications for most people who work in corporate venturing.
Many of those who argue that corporate venturing is a profession, prefer to be solely or largely focused on pursuing venture deals. They say that working on acquisitions and venture capital deals can be a distraction and can lead to being less plugged into what is going on on Sand Hill Road. That the best-known corporate venture group, Intel Capital, is now set to be run by Intel’s president of mergers and acquisitions (M&A), Wendell Brooks, is likely to challenge this way of doing things.
Brooks’ appointment comes as M&A at Intel is in the spotlight, with the $16.7bn acquisition of semiconductor company Altera.
Today the corporate venturing industry is toasting the retirement of Arvind Sodhani, a man dubbed a corporate venturing “leader” and “icon”, and is looking more closely at Brooks. To understand these changes we have requested interviews with Sodhani and Brooks, which should be published shortly.
Every group which has started a venturing unit has turned to Intel Capital for advice on how it does things. It will be interesting to see whether others also imitate Intel’s move to bring venturing closer to the core business.
Of course a number of senior corporate venturing executives also hold multiple roles in their corporation such as General Motors’ Jon Lauckner, who is also chief technical officer and vice-president of research and development, as well as Deborah Hopkins, who is also chief innovation officer at Citigroup. There are also elements where this is the continuing of the status quo. Intel Capital has long played a big role in large strategic deals Intel has taken part in, including investments in Cloudera, ASML and Clearwire.
At the same time Intel Capital has a brand with significant clout, with numerous well-known investment and operating executives, and so a change in the titular head and reporting structure may be relatively seamless. The corporation can likely remain plugged into the venturing world with the quality of its staff, whatever its organisational structure.
Yet it seems we have entered a new chapter in corporate venturing’s history with the latest news at Intel Capital. What it means for the wider industry should be of intense interest to us all.