When Intel Capital announced its Plans to stand out from semiconductor giant Intel In January, it was shocking considering the company has been operating in Intel’s venture capital division since 1991.
In many ways, this decision marks the end of the era that some consider to be the first ever corporate venture capital firm. The company was founded 35 years ago and supports nearly 2,000 companies including: DocuSign, Mongodb and Hugging Face.
But for Mark Rostick, vice president and senior managing director of Intel Capital, the transition to venture capital is a new opportunity while allowing the company to retain many of its benefits as a CVC.
Rostick joined the company in 1999 because a friend at Intel Capital suggested that he should try to find a job there. Rostick didn’t like working as a tech licensing lawyer at the time, and he took her. After meeting the team, he said he would do anything, even anything on the floor, to get involved.
“You can work with the smartest people in the world,” Rostick told TechCrunch. “The hardest thing to do in business is to start with nothing and literally get off the ground. These are the coolest people because they are doing something special. Being able to use a combination of training I’ve had [combined] By working with people doing the hardest things in their business, it’s irresistible to me. ”
Rostick has been staying for two decades and has seen the company invest $20 billion in more than 1,800 companies, while adding more than 700 to launch exits.
The idea of Intel Capital, which started from the parent company, is not a new one, has been discussed several times in the past, Rostick said. The debate has always focused on the pros and cons of how a company can move faster or be more agile, and how many companies will have to give up without a parent company.
But those conversations began to get worse in early 2024 and became concrete last fall, Rostic said. He added that he and Intel Capital head Anthony Lin were able to start to get the team happy with the idea of his own strike.
“We think our track record deserves attention from outside investors,” Rostic said. “We did a great job, even if you know, many venture capital industries aren’t able to get out of reach, and we have some success, so we feel like we can position ourselves as being a little outlier there.”
He added Exports of Astera Lab Last year helped them with the timing. Intel Capital initially supported Astera Labs in 2018. The semiconductor company was publicly valued at a valuation of US$5.5 billion in March 2024. A year later, Astera Labs has a market capitalization of $9.8 billion, making it one of the most successful venture-backed exports in 2024.
This success may also show potential LP, Rostick said, and Intel Capital is a company that is making the right bets and seeing returns on capital at once, with very little venture capital support. Last year, U.S. venture capital exports totaled $149.2 billion Tone dataThat’s a lot lower than the year 2019 than the year 312 billion, even if you rule out outliers like 2021 ($84.1 billion).
It’s not clear that everyone at Intel Capital is actually 100% clear when changes occur. At the managing director level alone, these spin-off speeches start to be serious, including: Mark Lydon, Arun Chetty, Sean Doyle and Tammi Smorynski, all of whom have worked at the company for over 20 years, because Initial report By Axios.
An Intel Capital spokesman said the recent departure was not linked to the news that the company stood out.
This move was also an interesting time for the company’s parent company, which had a turbulent year. Former CEO Pat Gelsinger suddenly retired on December 1 – he has been discussing the company about the split Report. After that, the company has Its Ohio chip factory must be delayed again Decide not to bring its Falcon Coast AI chip to market. It also added Lip-Bu Tan serves as new CEO Who is said to have a comprehensive change to the company.
Regardless, derivatives continue.
Rostic said the company is expected to be completely independent sometime in the third quarter of 2025. He added that the new company, which has not been named, looks to be very similar to Intel Capital now. The company will keep Intel as a boosting investor and will still invest in early-stage startups in the same field: AI, cloud, equipment and border technology, among others. After the official spin, the company may raise funds soon.
“We’ve already socialized with people and felt we’re getting a good response,” Rostic said. “We’re not naive. We know it’s going to be a tough process.”
The success of this new solo company is a decision that can determine the market. But meanwhile, despite everything else, Rostick said the company has largely continued to operate as usual.
“We are investing in new opportunities and actively looking for those opportunities,” Rostic said. “We maintain portfolios by following the attention we deserve, and it makes sense to everyone. And, you know, manage the exit of portfolios. When we make the conversion, we have been going at the same rate as we are today, and that has been the plan.”
