Intel Capital Announces Three Investments

[btarunr]

Intel Capital, Intel Corporation's global investment organization, today demonstrated its ongoing support for technological innovation with the announcement of three U.S.-based investments totaling approximately $15 million. The deals include eldercare website Caring.com, real estate investment ratings provider SmartZip Analytics and infrastructure services provider Virtustream.

In addition to these three investments, Intel Capital also highlighted several recently announced investments. These include educational gaming company Tabula Digita, Carrier Ethernet solutions provider Overture Networks and advertising technology company BlackArrow.

"Technological innovation is an important driver for growth across all economies," said Arvind Sodhani, president of Intel Capital and Intel executive vice president. "New ideas require an ecosystem to take root and grow to encourage the formation of new businesses and creation of new industries. These three investments, ranging from IT infrastructure to digital health and the consumer Internet, reflect the core emphasis Intel Capital places on cultivating the most promising areas of innovation to foster the development of the technologies of tomorrow."

Caring.com (San Mateo, Calif.) is an online destination for family caregivers facing myriad challenges of eldercare, a rapidly growing category within digital health. Its offerings include thousands of original articles, helpful tools, advice from more than 50 leading experts, a community of caregivers and a comprehensive directory of eldercare services. With 1 million unique monthly visitors, Caring.com is a trusted source of eldercare information and community on the Web. Caring.com will use the new funding to support the company's continued expansion, including further development of the Caring.com site, its local eldercare services directory and new marketing programs.

SmartZip Analytics (Pleasanton, Calif.) offers independent investment ratings and analysis on over 70 million U.S. residential properties. The company's products are used by homebuyers, investors and real estate professionals to find, compare and assess the best places and best properties to buy. Built using proprietary analytics, SmartZip ratings bring efficiency to the real estate market by helping consumers make better informed, more confident home purchase decisions. Intel Capital's investment will be used to expand availability of SmartZip's home investment ratings and reports nationwide.

Virtustream (Washington, D.C.) is an infrastructure services firm committed to helping clients fully actualize the enterprise cloud by providing strategy, integration and managed services utilizing virtualization technologies, and xStream, the company's secure cloud platform. Virtustream delivers efficient infrastructure solutions backed by guaranteed service levels and a resource-based pricing model. The company offers three pillars of service including professional services, cloud services and managed services. The investment from Intel Capital is earmarked for the continued development of Virtustream's infrastructure and the expansion of the xStream cloud computing platform.

Funding for all six investments comes from the $200 million Intel Capital Invest in America Technology Fund. Announced in February, the fund invests in U.S.-based growth-oriented industries to foster economic recovery and growth, and to anchor the nation's competitiveness on the global stage.

[aj28]

Add a few zeros to that number and they could "invest" nVidia right out of business!
(I'll admit, that was my first thought when reading this article, and probably a thought in Intel's head too.)

[DaedalusHelios]

Originally Posted by aj28

Add a few zeros to that number and they could "invest" nVidia right out of business!
(I'll admit, that was my first thought when reading this article, and probably a thought in Intel's head too.)

If Intel bought Nvidia it would put the nails in AMD's coffin. They don't want that because they would crush their only real competitor and be broken up by anti-trust laws. Nvidia with Intel's research dollars means a dead AMD if they really wanted. But once again it would be counter productive and the absolute worst for the consumer. Like Microsoft destroying Apple would be doing the same thing if you understand what I am saying.

It has happened before with AT&T among others.

[WarEagleAU]

As much as I don't buy their stuff, I gotta admit I respect Intel for the charitable donations they give. Mad Love!