Intel says it won’t cut VC investment

Chipmaker Intel Corp. has dismissed reports that its venture capital investments are likely to fall in 2001, Reuters reports.

Robert Manneta, spokesperson for Intel, spoke to the news service about an earlier Financial Times report which said that Intel’s venture capital investments were ‘likely to fall’ to less than $1bn in 2001 from $1.3bn in 2000.

He told Reuters: “We invested last year a total of $1.3bn and we would like to do that again this year. It is true that we are constrained. We almost always invest alongside venture capital firms, and they’re tending more to their companies. But we still want to be out there investing in promising companies.”

Manneta added: “We were doing corporate VC before it was cool. I don’t know with the NASDAQ declining if it’s still cool, but we’re still doing it. We’re driven by strategic intent.” That means that whatever investment Intel commits to, there is always a “tie-in” that helps the company, he said.

The Financial Times report published on Wednesday quotes Les Vadez, head of Intel Capital, saying: “The venture capital community has slowed down tremendously, and since we partner with venture capital firms in our investments, we won’t be able to invest in as many companies as we would like to.”