Advanced Technology Ventures slipped one by us. Over the holidays the Waltham, MA-based venture firm closed its eighth fund, at $303 million, and didn’t put out a notice. VentureBeat broke the news in a small item two days ago, and ATV confirmed it—and gave me a bit more detail about the fund’s investment targets and philosophy—this morning.
General partner Bob Hower reports that “we are adhering to our core strategy of early stage clean tech, medical device, IT, and drug-discovery investing.” However, he says, “We’re also expanding a bit to include green building materials and non-therapeutic medical devices.”
ATV has been busy lately. In late January, the firm announced the addition of three senior associates—Thomas “Tom” Caputo, Ken Ebbitt, and Dharmesh Thakker—who will work in its IT practice. Caputo was most recently group product manager for Windows, over at Microsoft. Ebbitt hails from PayPal, and Thakker was director of corporate development at Keynote Systems.
VentureBeat also reports that ATV recently took former entrepreneur in residence Todd Kimmel back into the fold. Kimmel co-founded Coskata, an Illinois-based cellulosic ethanol company, which recently signed a big R&D deal with General Motors. (Here’s our conversation with ATV’s Bill Wiberg about the deal.) He has now joined the firm’s Palo Alto office as a principal.
Author: Robert Buderi
Bob is Xconomy's founder and chairman. He is one of the country's foremost journalists covering business and technology. As a noted author and magazine editor, he is a sought-after commentator on innovation and global competitiveness. Before taking his most recent position as a research fellow in MIT's Center for International Studies, Bob served as Editor in Chief of MIT's Technology Review, then a 10-times-a-year publication with a circulation of 315,000. Bob led the magazine to numerous editorial and design awards and oversaw its expansion into three foreign editions, electronic newsletters, and highly successful conferences. As BusinessWeek's technology editor, he shared in the 1992 National Magazine Award for The Quality Imperative.
Bob is the author of four books about technology and innovation. Naval Innovation for the 21st Century (2013) is a post-Cold War account of the Office of Naval Research. Guanxi (2006) focuses on Microsoft's Beijing research lab as a metaphor for global competitiveness. Engines of Tomorrow (2000) describes the evolution of corporate research. The Invention That Changed the World (1996) covered a secret lab at MIT during WWII. Bob served on the Council on Competitiveness-sponsored National Innovation Initiative and is an advisor to the Draper Prize Nominating Committee. He has been a regular guest of CNBC's Strategy Session and has spoken about innovation at many venues, including the Business Council, Amazon, eBay, Google, IBM, and Microsoft.
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