Intel Capital, the biggest venture capital investor in the world, will continue to invest in India across companies in technology and e-commerce from its $250-million fund.
The investment arm of Intel Corp., the world’s largest chipmaker, would also invest in cloud computing, data analysis, software, education, consumer internet and mobility, among others.
“India has been an important geography for us, and we have one of the largest geography teams in India. We are investing in a big way in India. e-commerce has been a heavy investment opportunity for us during the last couple of years,” Intel Capital President Arvind Sodhani said in an interaction with the media.
e-commerce, which has barely scratched the surface in India, like many other countries across the world, holds a huge potential, he added.
He, however, did not specify the quantum of investments that would be made in Indian companies but said that it is not looking at setting up a new fund for India.
Intel Capital, which made its first investment in 1998, had invested over $330 million in more than 90 technology companies across 10 cities till date. In December 2005, the VC firm had launched ‘Intel Capital India Technology Fund’ worth $250 million, of which about 80 per cent has been deployed.
Wearable tech cos
The stage-agnostic investor would also look at investing in wearable technology companies across the world as they touch the entire spectrum of computing. The company, which had already made investments in Recon Investments, Sotera, Basis Science, Atomic Labs in Canada, continues to scout for similar investments across the world.
“Wearables is an interesting category and an emerging trend. We believe that there will be hundreds of millions of wearables that people will wear in the future,” Sodhani said.
Intel Capital is also looking at investing in countries in the Asia-Pacific region. These include nations such as Japan (where there is already a heavy investment), Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand and Singapore.
“We are investing in countries where other venture capital funds don't even take a flight to.” It had invested about $11 billion in 1,300 companies, and had made 500 exits.
'Eyes and ear' companies
It is also looking at investing in ‘eyes and ear’ companies (firms with innovation and leading edge technologies) either at seed stage or initial round of investments.
“We expect these companies would intercept our business and policies down the road,” he added.
(This correspondent is in San Diego at the invitation of Intel Capital.)