Daniel Ateya, president and managing director, RTX Ventures, is one of the 100 leading corporate venturing professionals in our 2025 Powerlist.
Daniel Ateya leads RTX Ventures, the US aerospace and defence company RTX’s corporate VC group. With a PhD in mechanical engineering and nearly a decade working for 3M ventures, he feels the role was a natural fit for him.
“I support RTX’s vision and appreciate the establishment of a CVC group that incorporates best practices and a forward-looking perspective on how we can leverage a tool like this within the company.”
Ateya, who has led RTX Ventures since its founding in 2022, says the CVC has experienced success. “The portfolio has been performing, financially, extremely well. And, separately, we have a number of very promising partnerships that have evolved and emerged over the past three years,” he says.
Of these partnerships, he highlights the RTX Ventures portfolio company Ursa Major’s work with Raytheon, an RTX business. Ursa Major made the rocket motors that powered a successful Raytheon missile demonstration in March.
“We have many projects that are also in earlier stages, with strong engagement from the RTX businesses and our portfolio companies. This collaboration has created a strong pipeline of partnerships.”
Ateya says that RTX Ventures was consciously established with a small team at first, with room to expand outward as necessary. “You need to start small and build some short-term wins before expanding,” he says.
The team’s strength can be amplified, he says, by working closely with RTX’s R&D team and its legal and finance departments. Ateya believes this helps “leverage the strengths of our company and augment this [CVC group’s] core investments”.
“You need to start small and build some short-term wins before expanding”
RTX Ventures focuses its investments on the six areas it expects will face the most disruption during the next 10 years. These are propulsion technologies, autonomous systems, data analytics, space, advanced materials and compute power.
“Our CVC is complimentary to RTX’s mission,” he says. “Understanding the evolution of new technologies and markets creates new business opportunities that would not exist and opens doors for long-term growth.”
The Global Corporate Venturing Powerlist represents the 100 individuals spearheading the future of the corporate venturing industry.
These individuals excel in terms of their venturing approach and structure, number and quality of portfolio companies and in their contributions to the corporate venturing profession.
