Tamara Steffens, managing director of Thomson Reuters Ventures, is one of the 100 leading corporate venturing professionals in our 2025 Powerlist.

Thomson Reuters Ventures may only be three years old, but it had another significant year under managing director Tamara Steffens, launching a $150m second fund in February that will enable it to invest in later-stage startups.
“We are really just doubling down on the strategy we had for the first three years,” says Steffens.
“Because it is a larger fund, we can invest in some later-stage rounds. It is about 80% series A and a little bit of seed, but now we can stretch a little bit to a series B if there is something that is really exciting.”
Steffens moved to legal, tax and technology services provider Thomson Reuters in 2022 to launch its corporate venture arm with a $100m debut fund, having formerly been a managing director at Microsoft’s M12 unit.
She had previously been a founder, working at half a dozen startups before the last one, email app developer Acompli, was snapped up by Microsoft. That background has informed her work as an investor.
“Growing up in startup-land means I know how to work with founders…no startup is perfect, and you have got to be able to see that and not panic.”
“Growing up in startup-land means I know how to work with founders,” she says. “Having been an operator is a big strength, being able to see companies ebb and flow. You do hit bumps in the road. No startup is perfect, and you have got to be able to see that and not panic.”
Highlights this year include investments in patent writing automation startup Solve Intelligence and Noetica, which provides software that benchmarks corporate loan transactions. A seed investment in AI co-pilot developer Materia last June led to an acquisition by Thomson Reuters just four months later.
Steffens says the company’s array of in-house legal and tax experts gives her a big advantage, and the AI boom has led to a flurry of exciting startups in its key areas.
“The first three years could not have been better,” she says. “Mostly because the categories that we look at that are aligned with us strategically, in particular tax and legal, but also risk and fraud, just fits squarely into AI and tech that is coming out in AI. It is pretty exciting from that perspective, it has been really fun.”

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.