Global Corporate Venturing Rising Stars Awards 2016: Michael Harries

Michael Harries, chief technologist at US-based technology firm Citrix Startup Accelerator, is interested in the social implications of technology.

Or, “using emerging technologies to create a better world,” as Harries says on his public biography on LinkedIn.

As co-founder of Citrix Startup Accelerator, he is arguably in the best place globally to examine what these implications will be.

Harries said the accelerator was created in 2011 as a way to extend Citrix’s applied research by working closely with early-stage startups. “I identify, invest in, and coach startups with an opportunity to ‘transform enterprise infrastructure’ or change the ‘future of work’.”

Citrix invests $250,000, generally as part of a $1m-$2m seed round and works with companies for up to 18 months. Citrix has also added an earlier-stage, three-month accelerator that mixes external startups with entrepreneurs from within Citrix.

Harries said: “We have focused on companies with significant intellectual property, and an opportunity to have a radical influence. I would like to build this out to identify more high-risk and high-return B2B business-to-business companies.”

Harries said he had selected Citrix Startup Accelerator companies: ScriptRock, Wise.io, TidalScale, Tuebora, 3Ten8, Cumulogic, AppEnsure, Incoming Media, Graymatics and Iron.io.

Harries said ScriptRock had been among his best successes. “We have had exits. We have seen a number of our companies proceed into significant market traction, for example, ScriptRock.

“More fundamentally, working with our companies has brought substantial insights that have impacted on Citrix strategic direction.

“Innovation is a core challenge for every company, and today this is particularly intense given the very rapid pace of industry competition driven by new technologies and startups, particularly emerging from Silicon Valley.

“I see this work with startups as a highly effective way for corporates to gain insights into emerging trends and opportunities. Unlike internal research teams, startups are highly motivated to solve technology and market challenges.”

Not all corporate executives think like this, he admitted. “It is often difficult to draw a clear strategic connection for more operationally focused executives. Cultural change continues to be a challenge for us, just as it is for every company – we stand in the forefront of this cultural inertia.”

To help, he recommended corporate venturers provide “clarity around strategic goals” to investments.

Harries has been close to Citrix’s strategic goals for more than a decade, even when thousands of miles away from headquarters.

Before the accelerator, Harries was in the management team for Sydney, Australia-based Citrix Labs for nearly nine years.

Earlier, he had been a product manager and researcher for nearly two-and-a-half years for a startup, Pacific Knowledge Systems, commercialising machine learning technology for medical pathologists.

This technology had been invented in the same institution in which Harries studied his PhD in artificial intelligence from the University of New South Wales (NSW). At NSW, he worked with machine learning pioneers Ross Quinlan and Claude Sammut and taught machine learning and artificial intelligence courses.

Harries said: “It has been really exciting seeing a lot of this coming full circle at the moment. There are some amazing innovation and startups in machine intelligence and intelligence augmentation.”

Others are just catching up with the changes he has been helping to create.