{"id":20074,"date":"2025-09-14T04:29:19","date_gmt":"2025-09-14T04:29:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/20074\/"},"modified":"2025-09-14T04:29:19","modified_gmt":"2025-09-14T04:29:19","slug":"ibms-head-of-vc-shares-5-pillars-that-drive-her-startup-investments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/20074\/","title":{"rendered":"IBM’s Head of VC Shares 5 Pillars That Drive Her Startup Investments"},"content":{"rendered":"

Emily Fontaine engages with VC firms, startups, and portfolio companies every day, she told Business Insider, and she knows what she wants from them.<\/p>\n

As IBM’s<\/a> global head of venture capital, Fontaine leads IBM Ventures, which partners with companies working on everything from quantum<\/a> computing to artificial intelligence to cybersecurity. She said she wants to connect with 800 startups worldwide this year.<\/p>\n

“We’ve got a really good formula for that,” Fontaine said on how she decides whether to invest. “Our mission is super clear: accelerate enterprise innovation with emerging technologies that are delivering real business value.”<\/p>\n

Fontaine said she evaluates investments based on “five key pillars.”<\/p>\n

Strategic fit<\/p>\n

As the head of a corporate ventures arm, Fontaine said it’s important to back startups that align with IBM’s broader goals.<\/p>\n

“We want to back companies with a differentiated vision that’s aligned to major trends and IBM’s long-term strategy,” she told Business Insider.<\/p>\n

While once known as a hardware giant, IBM has recently started focusing on AI and hybrid cloud. Fontaine oversees the company’s $500 million Enterprise AI fund.<\/p>\n

Technology and product<\/p>\n

Fontaine’s next evaluative pillar focuses on the product itself: “Are these breakthrough solutions? Are they exceptional quantum quality? Is this technology fantastic?”<\/p>\n

Market and competition<\/p>\n

Beyond considering the actual technology, Fontaine said she thinks about a startup’s financial viability, like the total addressable market and “strong tailwinds,” or whether industry trends are favorable.<\/p>\n

“Is there clear white space for leadership?” she asked, referencing a company’s ability to fill a gap in the market.<\/p>\n

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Team<\/p>\n

Fontaine described herself as a collaborative leader. She said she\u00a0goes to the office\u00a0<\/a>as much as possible and encourages her team members to do the same. Twice a week,\u00a0she blocks out her whole team’s calendar for dedicated collaborative time.<\/p>\n

The same focus on teamwork applies to the startups she backs, which, for one, need “high-quality founders with deep domain expertise.”<\/p>\n

“But even more so \u2014 as we do not lead deals, we co-invest alongside top-tier VCs \u2014 you have to think about who’s on the cap table?” Fontaine said. “Is that a cap table you believe in?”<\/p>\n

A cap table \u2014 or capitalization table \u2014 is a document that outlines investors’ equity stakes in a startup.<\/p>\n

Financial discipline<\/p>\n

Ambition is great, but Fontaine said she’s also focused on making sure a startup has reasonable financial goals.<\/p>\n

“Do they have realistic milestones? Do they have scalable models?” she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Emily Fontaine engages with VC firms, startups, and portfolio companies every day, she told Business Insider, and she…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20075,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,2356,17842,17839,17840,17833,17836,17843,5763,61,60,17837,17835,17841,17834,80,17838],"class_list":["post-20074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-business-insider","tag-calendar","tag-cap-table","tag-dedicated-collaborative-time","tag-emily-fontaine","tag-head","tag-hybrid-cloud","tag-ibm","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-pillar","tag-portfolio-company","tag-same-focus","tag-startup-investments","tag-technology","tag-venture-capital-share"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20074\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}