Intel Capital unveils seven new Asia investments

They are: Singapore cloud consultancy CloudFX; cloud storage software provider Cloudian, which operates in Japan and the US; Chinese community website and services platform CSDN; Japanese cloud file service Fileforce; Taiwan-based high-speed connectivity specialist Lintes Technologies; and business continuity Perpetuuiti TechnoSoft Services and online Savaari Car Rentals, both from India.

The investments were announced at the 14th annual Intel Capital Global Summit held in San Diego.

Financial terms for each deal were not disclosed, but the China and India investments come from dedicated country funds - the $250 million Intel Capital India Technology fund, which launched in 2005, and the $500 million Intel Capital China Technology Fund II, which launched in 2008.

The latest round of investment takes Intel Capital's global spending to $223 million so far this year. In 2012 as a whole, it committed $352 million across 150 deals with approximately 57% funds invested outside the US. Of this sum, 17% was deployed in Asia Pacific and 7% in China specifically.

"We are investing in Asia Pacific and other countries that a lot of VCs don't even bother to take a plane to," Arvind Sodhani (pictured), president of Intel Capital and Intel executive vice president, told AVCJ. "We're investing in Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, and now we're also looking at investments in Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Thailand."

In terms of sectors, he cited wearable technology as one of the most interesting emerging trends.

"We're building the entire ecosystem and the evolution of wearable as a category," he added. "Wearable generates a lot of data that goes to smart phones, ultrabooks, tablets, and ultimately to the cloud where it is stored. It has implications for the connectivity, wireless, networking, servers, storage, and data analytics. These are all areas where we are investing aggressively."

Intel Capital is also looking for opportunities in voice communication, eye tracking and speech recognition across security, education, consumer internet and perceptional computing.

However, it has discontinued investment in WiMax technology - which received a lot of capital between 2005 and 2009 - and cleantech. In the case of the latter, it was decided that R&D evolution was too slow and returns had not met expectation.

On the exit front, for the year to mid-October, Intel Capital has recorded 23 exits - four by IPO and 19 through M&A transactions.

In May, Intel Capital completed its first portfolio IPO of the year as Aspeed Technology listed on Taiwan's GreTai Securities Market. Last month, Montage Technology Group, a China-based semiconductor manufacturer backed by Intel Capital and AsiaVest Partners, raised $71 million through a NASDAQ offering, becoming only the second Chinese company to go public on a US bourse this year.

Noting the tough exit environment, Sodhani said the firm isn't under the same pressures as traditional VC investors because it is not tied to funds with a 7-10 year lifespan.

"We're very patient late-stage technology investors," he said. "We have investments in portfolio companies today that have yet to be exited after almost 20 years."

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