Intel Capital has chosen Christine Herron (pictured) and Trina Van Pelt to manage its $125m Intel Capital Diversity Fund, which invests in tech startups led by women and underrepresented minorities, and had an active first half of the year with $308m invested in new and follow-on deals.
As co-heads of the Diversity Fund, Herron and Van Pelt replace Lisa Lambert, who left in May to become managing partner at Westly Group.
A former startup CEO, Herron joined Intel Capital in 2010 after a combined five years as a venture investor at First Round Capital and Omidyar Network. In total, she has led or managed investments in more than 40 companies raising more than $75m.
Van Pelt, who was promoted last month to managing director, also oversees Intel Capital’s investment and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity for the internet of things, and has led more than 70 technology acquisitions and investments worth more than $30bn.
In announcing their new roles, Wendell Brooks, president of Intel Capital and head of M&A, said he expected “to announce the Diversity Fund’s latest investment next week”.
This would follow an active first six months for Intel Capital. Brooks said between January and end-June, Intel Capital invested $308m in 19 new deals and “nearly three dozen [35] follow-on financings” focused on the cloud, the internet of things and other areas of innovation.
The first half of 2016 also saw at least nine M&A exits, with purchases of Joyent (acquired by Samsung), Nexmo (Vonage), Rocketick (Cadence) and iControl Networks (Comcast), among others. In addition, China Digital Video went public in late June, with Impinj floating a few weeks later in late July.
Brooks said beyond investments and exits, “the most visible example of our value-add to entrepreneurs is the Intel Capital Global Summit. Now in its 17th year, the venture industry’s premiere event will take place October 24-26 in San Diego.”
Separately, the US trade body National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) issued a report, Building a More Inclusive Entrepreneurial Ecosystem, on the lack of underrepresented groups participating in venture capital and entrepreneurship and provides an overview of diversity and inclusion initiatives in the US.
The report highlighted NVCA members Intel Capital and JumpStart, both of which launched funds dedicated to investing in underrepresented minority entrepreneurs.
This year, the NVCA began collaborating with The Robert Toigo Foundation to support its 27-year mission to advance the careers of underrepresented talent.
In 2015, 45* NVCA member firms representing $112bn in assets under management that have invested in 7,000 companies, made public commitments to advance diversity and inclusion in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, including five corporate-backed venture units from GE, IBM, Intel, Johnson & Johnson and SVB.
Sue Siegel, CEO of GE Ventures, said in the diversity report: “At GE Ventures, we see diversity and inclusiveness as an essential part of our innovation, creativity, productivity and competitive advantage. We take pride in being one of the most diverse corporate venture capital teams in the country.”
Claudia Fan Munce, managing director emeritus of IBM Venture Capital Group and venture adviser of New Enterprise Associates, added: “Corporations have a long history of embracing diversity in their workforce and leadership in order to achieve better business performance, as is clearly reflected in the leadership composition of over a thousand corporate venture groups operating today.
“As one of those leaders for the past 15 years, I am a big champion of diversity because I believe driving a higher level of performance in the innovation ecosystem can yield even greater impact on people lives.”
Johnson & Johnson said its commitment was for inclusion and diversity for the JJDC team (currently >30% of investors are female and >30% of investors are ethnically diverse).
The NVCA Diversity Task Force was formed in December 2014 by former NVCA board chair Scott Sandell, managing general partner of NEA, and diversity task force co-chairs Kate Mitchell, co-founder and partner of Scale Venture Partners, and Ashton Newhall, managing general partner of Greenspring Associates, focused on improving the diversity of the NVCA board.
The NVCA Board of Directors is now 38% women or underrepresented minority. By contrast, 11% of VCs are female and 74% are of white ethnicity (including 7% who are white and female), according to research by Richard Kerby, a vice-president at VC firm Venrock, in the report.
Kerby added: “The data show that the majority of venture capitalists don’t have operational experience or an engineering background. Therefore, it is important to focus on what all of the successful people listed above have in common. They are all intelligent, curious, driven, hardworking and a slew of other positive superlatives. But most importantly, they were given an opportunity to become an investor and access to capital to make investments.”
Bobby Franklin, president and CEO of NVCA, said: “NVCA and our members are committed to driving meaningful and measurable change to improve diversity and inclusion across the entrepreneurial ecosystem over the long term. We are focusing on opening pathways for the immense pipeline of diverse talent across the US.”
*Scale Venture Partners, JumpStart, Greenspring Associates, True Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, GE Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Pappas Ventures, .406 Ventures, Polaris Partners, North Bridge Venture Partners, SoftTechVC, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Intel Capital, IBM Venture Capital Group, Flybridge Capital Partners, Canaan Partners, 500 Startups, Bessemer Venture Partners, Battery Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, Catalyst Investors, New Atlantic Ventures, Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC, Lowercase Capital, Greycroft Partners, Accomplice, CommonAngels Ventures, Springboard Enterprises, Springboard Fund, PTV Healthcare Capital, Arboretum Ventures, Maven Ventures, Canvas Ventures, Emergence Capital Partners, US Venture Partners, Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, Zetta Venture Partners, Lightstone Venture Capital, Mercury Fund, Insight Venture Partners, Third Rock Ventures, NCT Ventures, Founder Collective, Adams Street Partners, SherpaCapital, Silicon Valley Bank, Benchmark Capital