A member of the top 25 from the Global Corporate Venturing Powerlist
Rachel Lam has been group managing director of US-based media company Time Warner’s strategic investment unit for more than 10 years, since its launch in 2003. Her unit has been investing in early to mid-stage companies that generate strategic value for Time Warner, with investment cheques of usually up to $25m.
However, last year saw Time Warner join the $275m series E round for DanDuel, alongside buyout firm KKR and conglomerate Alphabet’s Google Capital corporate venturing unit.
She had returned to Time Warner in 2001, after originally being at the company as director, office of the president at Time Warner, where she worked directly for Dick Parsons, former Time Warner CEO, on corporate transactions and strategic initiatives.
In between Time Warner stints, Lam had worked for venture capital firms connected to banks, including Quetzal/Chase Capital Partners and at CSFB Equity Partners, the private equity captive unit of Switzerland-based bank Credit Suisse. She has also worked in banking at Credit Suisse and at Morgan Stanley.
She leads the Time Warner Investments group which has been investing in early to mid-stage companies that generate strategic value for Time Warner, with investment cheques of up to $25m. Last year Time Warner Investments led rounds in digital publisher, Mashable and live video streaming company, Kamcord, with Ms. Lam joining the boards of both of these companies. In addition, her group participated in new rounds for virtual reality company, Next VR and fantasy sports leader, FanDuel. She returned to Time Warner in 2001, after originally being at the company as Director, Office of the President at Time Warner, where she worked directly for Dick Parsons, former Time Warner CEO, on corporate transactions and strategic initiatives. In between Time Warner stints, Lam had worked for venture capital firms connected to banks, including Quetzal/Chase Capital Partners and CSFB Equity Partners. She has also worked in investment banking at Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley.
Out of 21 current portfolio companies, she serves on the boards of CrowdStar, Mashable, Simulmedia, Tremor Video, Kamcord, NuvoTV and We Heart It.
Previously, she was Time Warner’s board representative to, and managed Time Warner’s exit from, MediaVast (sold to Getty Images), PlaySpan (sold to Visa), Turbine (sold to Warner Bros), Kosmix (sold to Walmart), ScanScout (sold to Tremor Video), Admeld (sold to Google), Bluefin Labs (sold to Twitter), Maker Studios (sold to Disney) and iSocket (sold to the Rubicon Project).
Her group also saw the sale of portfolio company Visible World to Comcast last year for an undisclosed amount.
This came after 2014’s exit of Freewheel, in which Turner, a subsidiary of Time Warner, had been a corporate venturing investor.
However, the $500m Maker Studios exit has been especially helpful to Lam recently. Last month, Time Warner invested in US-based games platform Kamcord’s $15m series C round, alongside existing backers Tencent, TransLink Capital, XG Ventures, Plug & Play Ventures and Wargaming.
With the deal, Kamcord co-founder Adi Rathnam told news provider TechCrunch he was particularly keen to work with Lam, since she played a prominent part in scaling Maker Studios and understood the needs of YouTube stars.
Added to that, he has been impressed by the value that Time Warner can add, with Kamcord already having “early dialogue with operating divisions” at Time Warner over ways to work together, he told TechCrunch.
Lam has a degree in industrial engineering and operations research from Berkeley and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Time Warner’s investment activity since the beginning of 2015
