26 – 100 in alphabetical order by company: Thomas Lounibos, global managing director, Accenture Ventures
Tom Lounibos has been serving as global managing director of Accenture Ventures, the corporate venturing arm of US-based management consultancy Accenture, since January 2020.
He first joined Accenture Ventures as an entrepreneur in residence in April 2019, following a long career as a prolific technology entrepreneur and founder of six different software startups, two of which – KnowledgeWare and Sagent Technologies – went public and the other four were sold to larger software companies.
When he joined, Lounibos pledged to develop Accenture Ventures as “an investment and collaboration platform that bridges the gap between the global software startup community and the Global2000 who seek competitive advantage from emerging technologies”.
Accenture Ventures was an investor in his most recent company founded in 2006, Soasta, which provides testing services for websites and web applications. It was later acquired by cloud services provider Akamai Technologies in March 2017, enabling the unit to exit.
Formed in 2015 under the Accenture Innovation Architecture umbrella, Accenture Ventures serves as a link between the global innovation ecosystem and Accenture, bridging the latter’s clients with entrepreneurs and startups to accelerate their potential and carry out digital transformation.
The unit’s recent investments have included open finance data technology provider Okra, environmental, social and governance data monitoring platform Arabesque S-Ray, data privacy technology developer TripleBlind and virtual experience technology provider Touchcast. It has also exited augmented reality technology developer Upskill in a March 2021 acquisition by remote access software provider TeamViewer.
Lounibos said when he took up his current role: “Having been an entrepreneur for 40 years, I am excited to bring my relationships with startups and the venture community to Accenture Ventures. Accenture Ventures has historically been focused on growth-stage companies and while we will continue to play there, I am looking forward to shifting more to the left to engage entrepreneurs earlier in their innovation lifecycle, in seed and A rounds.
“I think there is tremendous opportunity to continue to bring Accenture’s global scale and business experience to bear, working closely with startup founders on their ideas, helping them understand the market, and bringing new solutions and concepts to market together with our enterprise clients.”
Paul Daugherty, group chief executive of technology and chief technology officer at Accenture, added: “Tom’s proven track record as an entrepreneur and his wealth of venture capital expertise makes him the ideal person to help us take Accenture Ventures to the next level.
“His vast network of contacts in the global VC community, and ability to connect with and earn the trust of startup founders, will be invaluable as we grow Accenture Ventures and extend our innovation at Accenture and for our clients.”
With four decades of experience serving in executive roles at early-stage software companies and with wide industry connections with CEOs of innovative application software and mobile startups, Lounibos is proficient in cloud application development and supports online user experiences.
