""We look at three key areas for every one of our investments. The first, products or capabilities. The second being: Are they an ecosystem partner? Generally, they fall within those two categories. The third being: Are they very disruptive to industry? And we work very closely with IBM Research on those ones that are totally disrupting the industry and doing something incredibly novel.""
""We're looking for investments that are ready to scale, ready to partner, deploying responsible AI, [using] what we call the 'capital-plus' model," Fontaine said. The "plus" aspect is that unlike a standalone VC fund, IBM has the ability to find new customers for its startups among its current clients."
""At IBM, we are client zero. We drink our own champagne and what I mean by that is we use our own capabilities internally to drive a ridiculous amount of value.""
IBM Ventures is a $500 million corporate venture fund concentrated on AI and quantum computing, with 23 investments including Hugging Face, Not Diamond, Unstructured, QEDMA, and Reality Defender. The fund targets business-to-business companies that fit within IBM's client ecosystem and that are ready to scale and partner. The capital-plus model pairs investment with access to IBM customers, producing an over 90% collaboration rate with portfolio companies. Investment criteria focus on products or capabilities, ecosystem partnership, and industry disruption, with close collaboration with IBM Research for highly novel breakthroughs. IBM also adopts portfolio technologies internally as a primary user.
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