Austin—[Updated 5/9/17, 10:58 a.m. See below.] Dell Technologies is publicly unveiling a venture capital investment arm that has been quietly investing in startups since the operation was run by EMC, the data storage giant that Dell agreed to acquire for $67 billion in 2015.
Called Dell Technologies Capital, the investment arm plans to provide funding to about 20 startups this year, Scott Darling, president of group, told Bloomberg, which first reported the news this morning. Dell Technologies Capital “pursues new and emerging technologies aggressively,” operating with about $100 million annually in venture funding and $2 billion annually for mergers and acquisitions, according to Darling’s LinkedIn.
Before the Dell EMC merger, Darling had worked with EMC since 2012, where he had made venture investments, according to his online profiles. Dell’s own venture investment group merged with the EMC arm that Darling operated. Dell Technologies Capital typically invests between $3 million and $10 million in Series A and B rounds, while also providing more funding at later stages, according to the Bloomberg story.
The role that Dell and its founder, Michael Dell, have in the startup scene locally—and whether it’s large enough—has long been studied. Dell Technologies Capital has so far invested in more 70 startups, according to a press release. Darling told Bloomberg the company is now speaking up because it wants to do more to highlight the entrepreneurs it invests in. One example Dell highlighted is San Diego-based Edico Genome, which Dell EMC partnered with for its processor that speeds up the way genome sequencing data is processed, as Xconomy reported in January. [Updated to add wording from press release.]
Nantero, a Woburn, MA-based company that is building a new type of computer memory that it says is stronger than steel and less dense than aluminum, has also received funding from Dell Technologies Capital. Nantero’s technology is intended to replace flash memory and DRAM (dynamic random-access memory), and the company raised $21 million in a December funding round led by Globespan Capital Partners. At the time, Nantero said it had brought in $110 million in funding since its founding in 2001. [Paragraph added in update.]
