Brad McManus (pictured) has been promoted to head of Motorola Solutions Venture Capital (MSVC), the corporate venturing subsidiary of the eponymous US-based communications technology producer, following the departure of Reese Schroeder.
Schroeder has become managing director at Tyson Foods’s new corporate venturing unit, Tyson New Ventures, and is reporting to its head, Mary Kay James.
McManus said by email: “As you can imagine, filling Reese’s shoes will be quite a task.”
McManus had been investment director for MSVC and was selected as a Global Corporate Venturing Rising Star in January 2017 by Schroeder after selling two portfolio companies to search engine provider Google in three months.
Speech interface tool developer API.ai and eye-tracking technology developer Eyefluence were both successfully acquired by Google in the fourth quarter of 2016. McManus had joined MSVC two years earlier, and is a CVC veteran havng spent 12 years at the helm of Panasonic Ventures.
For his Rising Stars award, McManus said he had also made three deals for MSVC, explaining: “My three new deals were Orion [a $9m round in February 2016], SeamlessDocs [a $7m B round in May 2016] and a third company not publicly disclosed as of today [mid-December 2016].”
McManus has had a long history of combining financial and strategic goals. While part of the Panasonic Ventures team from 2002 to 2013, he said he invested in electric vehicle maker Tesla, “which generated over $300m in VC gains”.
McManus added in his Rising Stars profile: “More importantly we aligned Panasonic’s battery division with Tesla, which resulted in a major lithium ion battery partnership and the creation of the GigaFactory in Nevada, where the governor of the state estimated that the plant would generate $100bn in economic benefit over two decades from the construction of the factory (source: LA Times).”
But success for a corporate venture capital parent comes by keeping an eye on the needs of startups. McManus said: “My initial exposure to CVC was when I was associated with an early online payments startup that became a portfolio company of the Panasonic Incubator in 1999.
“Experiencing first-hand how a corporation and startup can work together for win-win outcomes made a strong impression on me. Startups at any stage of development and growth can generate significant mutual benefits for both parties.
“For early-stage companies, the credibility, industry and product/market advice can be invaluable, not to mention access to other players in the venture ecosystem. As I transitioned from the startup side of the table to the venture investment side, it was helpful to have an understanding of CVC from a startup’s perspective.
“I hope to continue to learning from entrepreneurs and innovators through the experience of venture capital investing. It is a genuine privilege to interact with some of the brightest people around the world who are starting early-stage companies.
“All of us in the venture industry have a unique opportunity to be a part of next-generation technologies and business models, which have the potential to disrupt existing industries and change the way the world works.
“To strengthen our industry, CVCs should strive to evolve professionally in our capacities as venture investors and strategic partnering thought leaders. We should all work to maintain the highest levels of credibility and reputation (of not just ourselves but of the entire CVC community) by setting the example in how we interact with startups, our portfolio companies, venture capitalists and all related stakeholders.”
Prior to joining Panasonic Ventures, McManus was an institutional public equity investor for a large trust company, and then at an investment firm that he co-owned in Malibu, California.