Intel Capital Invests in Cloud Computing and Mobile Phone Technology

Intel Corporation’s venture capital arm, Intel Capital, announced recently their new ventures in 4 new companies whose focal point is cloud computing and more advanced mobile phone technology. This new undertaking will entail an additional investment of $24.5 million from the company bringing their total investments for the last 20 years up to $10 billion dollars for its expansion efforts.

Among the companies that Intel Corporation has partnered with is National Instruments Corp. (NATI) where they invested over $58 million. NATI is working on AWR Corporation’s automation software for several electronic designs. An independent institution owned by a chip giant, Intel Capital operates in Santa Clara, California. Its investments account to 1,140 companies in 49 countries all across the globe since 1991, 250 of these companies are now owned by Intel including NATI and 191 are now out in the public platform.

Arvind Sodhani, President of Intel Capital said in one of his statements that their primary and main focus now includes areas of cloud computing and data centers. This big investment is part of the company’s vision to further move forward their strategic interests and to inflate their market share in the areas of computing with the use of a technology that will become decisive in the next three to five years. This infrastructure will allow more control for the consumers by letting them run their programs and do back up information using various platforms such as hand-held mobile phones, security providers and different internet companies.

In a statement made during an interview by Dow Jones Sodhani said, “There is sizzling growth in those areas.” He also added, “Those areas are going through the roof in their usage and the innovation needed to be able to manage them.”

Intel Capital said last Monday that funding will be given to the developers of this new venture which includes the following companies: CrowdStar, a pioneer in developing social games on Facebook and different cellular platforms; iStreamPlanet, a key provider of live stream web videos; Music Mastermind, a developer of an audio processing program that will allow users to compose their own music and finally, PerspecSys, a strong security provider using cloud computing data.

Sodhani also said that Intel’s new business venture also included advancements in providing internet connection devices through flat-panel television, which they hope to achieve in the next three to five years. To accomplish this task of developing different ecosystems they have been working on WiFi with Smart TV.

Sodhani in one of his statement s said of Smart TV, “The entire ecosystem for smart TV needs to be developed, and we’re in the process of doing investments across the board in that space.” He also added “We’re going to be investing in a number of different areas”

Intel Capital continues to tap promising companies outside of the United States such as China and India. They are also exploring countries like Indonesia, UK, Israel and South Africa. Investments in these countries are normally placed at $300 million to $500 million each year.

Sodhani is excited and expects the first product activity to peak up this year especially those in China and the US. He is positive that internet users from social networking and gaming companies will also venture into enterprise software and cloud computing.

He said, “M&A tends to be constant over the years,” and also. “But the IPO markets go up and down. The return of the investor appetite has arrived with a big bang.”

He concluded that Intel will not stop making new ventures and acquisitions that will find specific solutions to specific technology and user needs.

And in his final statement he said, “We have a view of what Intel is coming out with three to five years from now.”