Dell Technologies unveils venture arm, sets to invest US$100 mil a year on startups

  • The venture arm, previously on stealth mode, has invested in more than 70 startups
  • Looks at startups involved in technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and others

Dell Technologies unveils venture arm, sets to invest US$100 mil a year on startups

DELL Technologies, the world’s largest privately-controlled technology company, has finally unveiled its venture arm Dell Technologies Capital.

Dell Technologies Capital, which was operating under stealth mode over the past few years, will be investing US$100 million on promising startups annually.

“At Dell Technologies Capital, we have a fundamental understanding of what promising young companies need to change the world. We provide the resources, scale and expertise to help them continue innovating and maximise their potential,” said Dell Technologies chairman and chief executive officer Michael Dell (pic above) during the Dell EMC World 2017 in Las Vegas earlier.

The venture arm, which was up and running under stealth mode few years ago, currently has investments in more than 70 early-stage startups. 

The ventures team focuses on emerging technology areas that are relevant to the Dell Technologies’ family of businesses: Dell, Dell EMC, Pivotal, RSA, SecureWorks, Virtustream and VMware.

Dell Technologies unveils venture arm, sets to invest US$100 mil a year on startups

Unlike other venture firm, Dell Technologies Capital has its sets of benefits for the startups.

Besides capital, the venture arm is able to offer startups with experienced board members, deep technical expertise and access to the global scale, channel, and go-to-market relationships that are unique to Dell Technologies’ family of businesses.

“Capital is merely table stakes to set up a startup company on the path to success. 

"New companies are looking for active investment partners who provide breadth and depth of expertise and access to resources and scale,” said Dell Technologies Capital president Scott Darling.

For Dell Technologies, the setting up of the venture arm allows the company to be even more in tune with the latest technology and be at the forefront of the technology wave.

Among areas the venture arm is looking at include storage, software-defined networking, management and orchestration, security, machine learning, artificial intelligence, big data, analytics, cloud, Internet of Things and DevOps. 

“We are investing in various areas, like artificial intelligence and machine learnings… Things that will be mainstream in the future. So, we are looking at startups that will be fuelling the next big wave technology adoption,” said Dell Technologies chief financial officer Tom Sweet (pic above)

Dell Technologies unveils venture arm, sets to invest US$100 mil a year on startups

While substantial amount of the startups Dell Technologies Capital invested in are based in the US, the company said that it will look at startups from across the world.

“I don’t think we are limited to just US startups. We are looking at startups globally,” said Sweet.

Besides investing in startups, Dell Technologies remained committed on innovation. 

According to Dell, the company invests approximately US$4.5 billion on research and development, and building innovation.

Goh Thean Eu reports from the Dell EMC World 2017 in Las Vegas at the invitation of Dell Technologies. All editorials are independent.

 

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