NTTVC, a US-based venture capital firm co-founded by Japan-headquartered telecommunications firm NTT and Vab Goel, a former partner at VC firm Norwest Venture Partners, publicly launched yesterday with $500m.
The $500m total represents the amount of capital in NTTVC’s debut fund. It is stage-agnostic and will invest across a range of areas including digital health, enterprise software and technology powered by big data, artificial intelligence and machine learning.
The firm will also offer its portfolio companies access to NTT’s executives, services, system integrators, customers and experts. It is focused on financial returns rather than strategic gain for NTT.
Goel is founding partner of NTTVC and its team includes another Norwest veteran, partner Fay Hazaveh Costa, as well as Mike Koenig, a partner in charge of portfolio development, and investors Ellie Still and James Hueston.
The firm has also disclosed a portfolio of five companies including Celona, a US-based developer of cellular wireless technology for the enterprise, which announced yesterday it had completed a $30m series B round co-led by NTTVC.
The series B round was co-led by Qualcomm Ventures, the corporate venturing arm of mobile chipmaker Qualcomm, and included Norwest Venture Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Cervin Ventures – the three investors that co-led Celona’s $10m series A round in September 2019.
Celona is being joined in the portfolio by Eko, a cardiac and respiratory disease monitor developer that raised $20m in September 2019, and medical data software provider Nference, which secured $60m four months later, as well as software service tool startup Shoreline and biometrics technology developer UDP Labs.
NTT already makes VC investments directly and through subsidiary NTT Data, while mobile network subsidiary NTT Docomo maintains its own corporate venturing unit.
Jun Sawada, NTT’s president and chief executive, said: “Our mission is to use technology for good to solve social challenges for people, clients and communities.
“We have always believed that the startup ecosystem is essential to delivering on that promise, which is why we chose to partner with NTTVC to fuel the next generation of world-changing technologies.”
