The rest of the 100 (in alphabetical order): Michael Stewart, Applied Ventures
Michael Stewart works for Applied Ventures, the corporate venture capital fund of Applied Materials, a US-based supplier of capital equipment for semiconductor and display manufacturing.
He worked in at Intel Research and then Applied Materials for a little over 10 years as a technical lead, then moved into CVC three years ago after completing his MBA at University of California Berkeley.
Rajesh Swaminathan, head of Applied Ventures, said: “Michael joined Applied Ventures almost three years back with extensive technical and operational experience in semiconductors and cleantech. Since then, he has successfully closed some of our notable investments in semiconductors, advanced materials and displays. Most recently he closed on an investment in Syntiant, an AI (artificial intelligence) startup, and continues to drive our investment strategy in AI.
“Michael is very well respected across the board, by our internal business leaders, startups and investment partners – CVCs and financial VCs – for both his technical expertise and for his ability to accelerate the time to market in our portfolio companies through creative and win-win partnership with Applied Materials’ product groups.”
Stewart added: “We are championing a new thesis around AI hardware and trying to see how we – the materials engineering expertise and knowledge centres in the company – could make a difference in the landscape of machine learning. We recently closed our first investment along this thesis and hope to fold in more new investments soon.”
