Intel is spinning off its venture capital arm, Intel Capital, into a standalone firm to attract outside investors and raise funds.
The cool part? Intel Capital has about $5 billion in assets, and by becoming independent, it can now raise money from outside investors. Until now, Intel was the only one funding it.
Last year was pretty rough for Intel on the stock market, the worst since it went public back in 1971. They’ve been trying to cut costs and simplify things while also investing heavily in new chip factories.
Oh, and they recently made some big changes in leadership too. Pat Gelsinger was ousted as CEO after a tough four years, and now they have two interim co-CEOs, David Zinzner and Michelle Holthaus.
In the past couple of years, Intel has sold off or shut down several smaller divisions and laid off employees as part of their cost-cutting efforts. They’re also working on spinning off Altera, a company that makes simple chips, and they plan to take it public.
Intel Capital’s team will stick around when it becomes independent in the second half of 2025, but they might even change the name. It’s interesting to note that Intel Capital was set up back in 1991 and was one of the first corporate venture arms.
Since then, many other big names like Google and Microsoft have followed suit. While Intel was a pioneer in this space, it’s not the first to spin off its investment arm. SAP did something similar back in 2011.
Corporate venture capital really peaked in 2021, raising a whopping $156 billion, but things have slowed down since then, mainly due to rising interest rates.
