Jeff Herbst has departed from his role heading Nvidia GPU Ventures to join Samsung Ventures alumnus Jay Eum at the recently formed GFT Ventures.
Jeff Herbst (pictured at the GCVI Summit), head of Nvidia GPU Ventures, the corporate venturing unit of US-based chipmaker Nvidia, has left to join venture capitalist Jay Eum in setting up a new firm, GFT Ventures.
GFT, which stands for global frontier technology – such as artificial intelligence, data science, blockchain and robotics – has completed a first close of undisclosed size for a debut fund with a final target of $100m.
Limited partners for the fund include chipmaker SK Hynix, internet group Naver, asset manager Mirae Asset Global Investments and US-based angel investors, in particular reflecting Eum’s connections as a former head of corporate venture capital unit Samsung Ventures and co-founder of VC firm TransLink Capital.
Eum and Herbst co-invested in audio technology developer SoundHound, which raised more than $300m and is valued above $2bn, but have delivered 29% gross annual (called internal) rates of return from their combined 78 deals.
Herbst’s deals at Nvidia through GPU Ventures and its Inception AI acceleration platform involved investments of $111m across 41 companies including autonomous truck developer TuSimple, which floated in April this year delivering a 46-times multiple.
GFT has hired Michal Wolkin, former head of Lear Innovation Ventures, automotive component maker Lear’s investment arm, in Israel, and Jenny Park, previously a principal at VC firm Quest Venture Partners. Israel is expected to make up a fifth of the first fund’s 15 to 20 investments, with the US the remaining 80%.
Herbst, who spoke at this year’s GCV Digital Forum on AI in a fireside chat with George Hoyem from In-Q-Tel, said: “After an amazing 20-year career at Nvidia, I recently left to co-found Global Frontier Technology Ventures with my very good friend, Jay Eum…. We support the best entrepreneurs, solving the hardest problems for the largest markets.”
