Geetha Dholakia, portfolio programme director at TDK Ventures, is one of our top 50 Rising Stars in corporate venturing for 2025.
For Geetha Dholakia, the path to corporate venturing was not straightforward. Initially a research scientist focusing on nanotechnology and space missions at NASA’s Ames Research Center, a job advertisement at TDK Ventures on LinkedIn led Dholakia to research the company.
She was interested in the investments TDK Ventures had been making, including eVTOL, 3D printing, metamaterials, digital radar and battery recycling, and saw an opportunity to contribute to the CVC ecosystem, leveraging her extensive deep-tech background and supporting entrepreneurs in their vision.
Highlighting the parallels between her roles at NASA and TDK Ventures, Dholakia says, “Both prioritise early-stage, hard-tech, deep-tech startups with the potential for commercialisation and both of them invest at the cutting edge of deep-tech technology, have high-risk, long-development cycles and need continuous funding investment through the growth and scaling phases.”
“People from all technical backgrounds and walks of life contribute to this ecosystem and provide value with their unique experience and perspective”
Dholakia has been with TDK Ventures since 2021. Her role involves enabling collaboration and synergy between their 40 portfolio companies and the global TDK business groups. The unit invests in seed to series B and has a total AUM of $350m. Cheque sizes are up to $5m but can go higher in some cases.
With geographically diverse investments in AI computing and connectivity, robotics and mobility, energy, clean tech, decarbonisation and nextgen materials, Dholakia’s main challenge is fostering strategic alignment. She and her team assess where synergies can be found between the portfolio companies and internal business groups and look for what TDK Ventures calls an “equal win”, where both parties must have equal motivation to engage.
She advises those with STEM backgrounds to consider careers in CVC because “people from all technical backgrounds and walks of life contribute to this ecosystem and provide value with their unique experience and perspective”.
See the full list of Rising Stars 2025 here.
