Intel Capital, the corporate venturing arm of US chip maker Intel, has agreed four deals, including its first deal into the robotics industry, while selling portfolio comapny SiPort to its parent.
Intel Capital led a $13m series C round into Aldebaran Robotics, a France-based humanoid robotics company named after a type-K5III star used by science fiction writers as a potential Earth-like world (pictured). This deal is Intel’s first investment in the robotics industry and Aldebaran’s existing local investors, CDC Innovation, iSource and Crédit Agricole Private Equity, also took part in the round having previously provided more than $7.3m since 2007.
Arvind Sodhani, president of Intel Capital, said: "Aldebaran’s work in areas such as voice interaction and video analytics really highlights the advances made in robotics and computing. Robotics has long been an area of interest because it leverages the power of computing to enrich lives of humans."
Christian Morales, general manager of Europe Middle East and Africa at Intel, said: "Over the past decade Intel has been conducting a considerable amount of research on difficult tasks such as movement in unstructured environments, gripping and vision processing."
The corporate venturiung unit was also among the backers of JouleX, a US-based company which produces energy management systems for data centres, in a $17m round. Other investors in the consortium included venture capital firms Sigma Partners, Flybridge Capital Partners, Target Partners and TechOperators. In November, US-listed industrial conglomerate General Electric invested in JouleX as part of a funding from its Ecomagination corporate venturing fund.
The deal followed Intel Capital leading a funding round for Russian geo-location company AlterGeo, which was reportedly worth $10m, according to news provider TechCrunch. Russian private equity firm Almaz Capital and angel investor Esther Dyson – who in 2008 and 2009 spent six months in Zvyozdny City near Moscow training for a space flight according to news provider Voice of Russia and who is a director and investor in search engine Yandex – also reportedly took part in the AlterGeo funding round.
Intel Capital also invested in a $12m funding round into online footwear retailer Sapato, its first investment in the electronic commerce sector in Russia.
Existing investors in Sapato, venture capital firms Direct Group, eVenture Capital Partners (which has retailer Otto Group as a cornerstone investor in its funds) and Kinnevik, also took part in the funding round which took the total raised by the Russian company to $16.6m since starting in June last year. As of May Sapato had a $2.8m turnover and secured more than 100,000 customers from selling 5700 models (shoes and accessories) from more than 200 brands.
Intel has acquired SiPort, a US-based provider of high-definition digital radio chips for an undisclosed amount. SiPort, which had suffered the death of three senior executives in a workplace shooting spree last year, had raised more than $30m from Intel Capital and venture capital firms Lightspeed Venture Partners, Morgenthaler Ventures and New Venture Partners.
See the forthcoming July issue of Global Corporate Venturing for an interview with Intel Capital’s president Arvind Sodhani on achieving the $10bn invested over its 20-year history.