Global Corporate Venturing Rising Stars Awards 2016: Aymerik Renard

Aymerik Renard, director of venture capital management at US-based SanDisk, seems to relish his role as a corporate venturing “force multiplier” for startups.

He said: “I lead Americas venture investing at SanDisk. I have been there for about 18 months. I am a repeat corporate venturer, having invested quite a bit for France Telecom-Orange in Silicon Valley from 2000 to 2009, and also doing some highly targeted tactical corporate investing in consumer electronics and internet of things hardware startups for multinational supply chain company PCH International – from 2011 to 2014 – working across Europe, North America and China.

“I first fell into corporate venture capital (CVC) accidentally owing to an early corporate business development role at France Telecom while scouting for new technologies that would give our internet services provider division an edge.

“I was immediately captivated by the pace at which startups move compared with large corporations. I found working with startups exciting and intellectually stimulating.

“I enjoy having a platform that can be deployed to help startups become more successful. Good CVC partners are force multipliers for startups, potentially helping with technology development, marketing, sales and distribution.

“SanDisk’s first investment, Whiptail, which was before my time, was rapidly acquired by Cisco at a very nice multiple, so we were off to a good start. More recently, 3D Robotics has displayed the steepest and fastest growth in revenues of our portfolio, validating our frontier technology investing initiative.”

Renard has been a board observer at 3D Robotics since April and is a mentor at an impressive number of accelerators as a way of sourcing new investment frontiers and potential deals, including Qualcomm Robotics Accelerator, Startupbootcamp, Lemnos Labs, Techstar’s R/GA Connected Devices Accelerator and Ubi i/o.

Before corporate venturing, Renard was in corporate development at France Telecom, and before this was a student at Carnegie Mellon University, studying information and decision systems as well as policy and management, “so I’m a technology as well as public policy and regulatory geek”.

It seems if the geeks do not inherit the world, they are certainly shaping it.