Intel pumps more than £100M in 11 startups

Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) has announced its tranche of startup investments: £108M ($132M) injected in 11 businesses. The deals speak to the venture capitalist’s commitment towards nurturing tech-based businesses including chip design, artificial intelligence, and autonomous computing.

While Intel Capital tries to operate independently from its parent company, it has not shied away from using Intel’s muscle to leverage relationships and expanding through mergers and acquisitions. Just a few days ago, the VC acquired Moovit, an Israeli startup that analyses urban traffic and provides recommendations to motorists. And even amid tensions, Intel always seems to have skin in the game.

In a statement, Intel senior vice president and president of Intel Capital Wendell Brooks noted: “Intel Capital identifies and invests in disruptive startups that are working to improve the way we work and live. Each of our recent investments is pushing the boundaries in areas such as AI, data analytics, autonomous systems and semiconductor innovation.”

“Intel Capital is excited to work with these companies as we jointly navigate the current world challenges and as we together drive sustainable, long-term growth.”

The series of deals comes at a time when the investors are worried about the future of venture investing due to the slowdown in the economy, precipitated by the Coronavirus pandemic.

New investments

But Intel seems to be keeping its eyes on the prize, as it plans to invest between £250M to £330M more by the close of 2020. The eleven startups that have already gobbled up £100M include Anodot, an app for monitoring business performance and customer incidences (invested sum £28.9M); Astera Labs, a connectivity solutions company (invested sum £5M); Axonne, developed high-speed connectivity for connected cars (invested £7.4M); Hypersonix, utilizes big data to predict demand for retail, hospitality, and e-commerce (invested £9.5M); KFBIO, a biotechnology company (invested £11.7M); Lilt, an AI company (invested sum £20.7M); MemVerge, a company that helps deploy heavy, data-centric applications (invested £102.9); ProPlus Electronics, an electronic design automation startup (invested sum: unknown); Retrace, a dental data firm (invested sum: unknown); Spectrum Materials, supplies gas and other materials to semiconductor manufacturers (amount invested: unknown); and Xsight Labs, a chipset designing company (invested sum: unknown).