JULY 12, 2002
PREVIOUS NEWS ANALYSIS
Intel Capital 'Ahead $2B'
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With so many startups in trouble in the communications market, you'd have thought that any venture capital company that had invested in 300 of them would be in trouble itself.
Not so. Intel Capital has done just this and made a whopping big profit. "We're ahead by $3 billion to $4 billion," Mark A. Christensen, corporate VP and director of communications sectors, told Light Reading in London today. "Even if we lost everything in our current portfolio [which he values at $1.5 billion], we'd still be $2 billion ahead."
Christensen says that Intel is investing less in optical startups at present, but that's partly because valuations have come down a lot, so "you can invest a lot cheaper."
The latest example of this is Intel's acquisition of New Focus Inc.'s (Nasdaq: NUFO - message board) tunable laser business for about $50 million in cash (see Intel Buys New Focus Laser Division ). "We believe that tunable lasers will be the next breakthrough," says Christensen. Current pessimism about the technology (see Tough Times for Tunable Lasers ) is simply because the market for tunable lasers is "too early in the cycle," he says.
Christensen admits that Intel has lost "a few" startups. It also lost its stake in Yipes Communications Inc. by declining to participate in the company that brought the Ethernet services provider out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection recently (see Yipes Reborn -- Amid Accusations ). Christensen says Intel is now considering investing in the new Yipes -- Yipes Enterprise Services Inc. -- because it still thinks the business concept is a good one.
— Peter Heywood, Founding Editor, Light Reading
lightreading.com |
