Intel Capital Fuels 16 Startups With $62M

Intel's global investment arm said Tuesday it has infused some $62 million into 16 technology startups.

The news came ahead of a press conference and demos scheduled with the funded companies that's part of Intel Capital's annual global summit. The conference has drawn more than 1,000 executives from Intel-funded companies and the venture capital industry to Huntington Beach, Calif.

The $62 million is part of an overall $355 million investment pot Intel Capital is expected to have spent by the end of this calendar year, which would represent a nearly 7 percent increase from its 2013 spend.

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"Intel Capital invests in the technology continuum that runs from wearables and the Internet of Things to big data analytics -- and everything in between, including silicon, smart devices, PCs, the cloud and data centers," Intel Capital President and Intel Executive Vice President Arvind Sodhani said in a statement.

Intel Capital had spent $344 million of that projected $355 million as of the end of October, which went to a total of 120 companies.

Those included in the recent raft of funding include Framingham, Mass.-based big data anomaly detection company Prelert; Gigya of San Francisco, which makes a cloud-based identity management solution; and wearables company Avegant of Redwood City, Calif.

Nearly half of the Intel Capital deals struck so far this year were new investments, including one in San Jose, Calif.-based NetSpeed Systems. Intel joined Walden-Riverwood Ventures in NetSpeed's Series B round, the total of which is not being disclosed.

The system-on-chip developer promises a fabric solution that cuts down development time and provides high performance, according to co- founder and CEO Sundari Mitra.

The latest funding for NetSpeed is expected to be used for development and global expansion as the company is opening offices in Japan, Shanghai and Taiwan by the end of this year, Mitra told CRN.

"I think [Intel's involvement] says a lot about our product and the potential of the company," Mitra said. "Intel has a massive amount of engineers that are working on groundbreaking technologies for microprocessor development and then they go ahead and invest in a startup with 45 people. It speaks volumes about our technology in terms of what we've been able to do."

PUBLISHED NOV. 4, 2014