After an extensive review, Intel Capital decided not to sell its investment portfolio of just over... [+]
It's been a challenging year for Intel Capital.
After admitting earlier this year that he was undertaking a comprehensive review of the chipmaker's corporate venture capital arm, including possibly dumping some of its assets for an estimated $1 billion, Intel Capital's president Wendell Brooks committed this week to keep its existing investment portfolio of just over 400 companies.
"We're not going to sell our portfolio," Brooks told me during the Intel Capital Global Summit being held this week in San Diego.
However, Brooks reaffirmed Intel Capital's new focus on investing more money in fewer startups that are strategically aligned with the company's lines of business, moving away from chasing opportunities based solely on their financial returns.
The annual Intel Capital Global Summit is the largest venture industry event organized by a single-investment firm, bringing together over 1,000 attendees from Intel Capital portfolio companies, technology industry leaders including Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam, Intel partners (Adidas, Bouygues Telecom, CEA-Leti, Disney, Nokia, Sony, SwissCom, Telmex...) and investors from around the world (Google Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Rusnano...), and more than 3,000 scheduled meetings over the 3-days conference.
"It's a really unique event where we meet the key people involved in the tech investment community and build long term relationships, which usually translates in more and better investments later," said Aymerik Renard, Western Digital's investment director.
At the 17th annual Intel Capital Global Summit, Brooks also unveiled new investments in 12 pioneering technology startups, totaling more than $38 million in sectors ranging from Internet of Things (IoT) and vision systems to virtual reality and connected cars.
Here are some more details the 12 promising startups that Intel Capital invested in:
Autonomous Machines
Chronocam (Paris, France) develops innovative computer vision sensors and systems for a variety of applications in autonomous navigation and connected objects. Formed by the leading pioneers in the field of neuromorphic vision, the company wants to establish a new computer vision standard by unlocking a paradigm shift in vision sensing and processing inspired by the human eye.
Embodied (Pasadena, CA), co-founded by the former CTO of iRobot, maker of Roomba, and a world-renowned professor of robotics and neuroscience from the University of Southern California, is developing state-of-the-art products that aim to revolutionize robotics. Leveraging major recent advances in machine perception, cognition and learning, its systems develop affordable personal robots that improve human wellness and quality of life.
Perrone Robotics (Charlottesville, VA) provides software and solutions that make it easier to build robust mobile autonomous robotics applications. Its technology helps researchers and engineers develop their partial and fully autonomous vehicle and robotics applications.
Data and Connectivity
Eazytec (China) is a smart city developer and service provider with proprietary core firmware (BIOS) technology. Its headquarters and research park, located in Yixing City, Jiangsu Province, have been identified as a national science and technology business incubator in China. The company specializes in application software and firmware development, system integration, and data center services.
Grand Chip Microelectronics (China) is committed to delivering high-performance, high-linearity and highly integrated Wi-Fi front-end devices for WLAN infrastructure, wireless connectivity on cellular platforms and the Internet of Things.
Paxata (Silicon Valley) is the leading enterprise-grade, self-service business information platform that serves the needs of both the business consumer and IT. With Paxata, business analysts, data engineers and data scientists are able to instantaneously transform raw data to information ready for business analysis with accuracy and efficiency. There is no need for code or sampling as Paxata leverages a patent-pending, machine learning, natural language processing and semantic text algorithm technology built on a distributed, in-memory columnar pipeline architecture for massive scale.
StealthMine (Silicon Valley) enables enterprise applications to run on encrypted data. The technology provides full data insulation against server, network, storage, database attacks and insider compromises.
Sports and Health
CubeWorks (Ann Harbor, MI) delivers the next generation in millimeter-scale computing with its Cubisens platform, which enables the first truly autonomous wireless sensing platform measuring less than a millimeter. Cubisens systems are able to sense and process their environment, wirelessly transmit the results, or store them for later usage.
Kinduct (Canada) provides cloud-based data and analytics software for sport organizations, military and public safety units, physical medicine clinics, and health and wellness institutions. With a client list that includes teams in all five major sports leagues in North America, the Kinduct platform is changing the way information shapes human performance by allowing organizations to derive insights from multiple sources of data.
K4Connect (Raleigh, NC) creates solutions that serve older adults and individuals living with disabilities by integrating the latest smart technologies and applications into a single responsive system. Its first solution, K4Community*, is specifically designed for residents of senior living communities, creating smarter and healthier living environments, as well as fostering family and community engagement, while also providing the operators with the insights and analytics needed to offer world-class care and hospitality.
Virtual Reality
Dysonics (San Francisco) leverages more than 20 years of academic research to deliver patented technologies that yield lifelike 360-degree sound experiences over headphones. Dysonics creates immersive audio software and hardware products for capture, creation and playback of next-generation content including virtual reality.
InContext Solutions (Chicago) develops scalable, cloud-based virtual reality solutions for retail that provide important insights for manufacturers and retailers. The company’s enterprise SaaS VR platform and services help brands visualize new concepts and better understand shopper behavior in a rapidly evolving retail space – more efficiently and profitably.
