Cisco Investments, the corporate venture capital arm of Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO), is allocating an additional $150m over the next two to three years with a theme-based approach.
With a total of $250m, it will fund early-stage companies focusing on accelerating the development of disruptive technology markets, including:
– big data and analytics;
– the Internet of Things (IoT);
– connected mobility;
– storage;
– silicon;
– the content technology ecosystem; and
– India innovation.
The firm has just announced three minority investments in:
– IoT accelerators and startups Alchemist Accelerator,
– Ayla Networks (read here) and
– EVRYTHNG.
Cisco Investments’ investment types range from small grants to seed-stage companies and winners of business-plan competitions, to larger equity investments in later stage and even pre-IPO companies. It has with more than 40 investment professionals with market and technology expertise located in major geographies, including the United States, China, India, Israel, and Europe.
FinSMEs
30/04/2014