Schneider Electric’s Global Investment Fund Expands with New Hires and Investments

Aug 28, 2019

SE Ventures (SEV) a new Silicon Valley-based $565M global investment fund backed by Schneider Electric announced the addition of two senior partners to lead their investment team.

Grant Allen and Varun Jain will bring their extensive global venture experience to SEV, and join Kevin Deneen, formerly of Aster Capital, to focus on investments in areas such as energy management, industrial automation and emobility.

Grant Allen joins SEV from Zurich-based ABB, where he led global ventures, overseeing a portfolio of 30+ direct and fund investments, including Bonsai AI (acquired by Microsoft), Industrial Defender (acquired by Lockheed Martin), Soft Robotics, and MineSense. An expert in corporate innovation and a venture investor for 12 years, he was instrumental in growing ABB Technology Ventures to become the most active CVC in the robotics/applied AI space, behind Google.

Varun Jain joins SEV from Qualcomm Ventures, where he led the global early-stage practice, including a portfolio of 80+ investments. Some of the recent major exits from the practice include Cruise Automation (acquired by GM), 99 (acquired by Didi) and Zoom. He brings a strong background in industrial automation, e-mobility, and SaaS.

SEV has invested in category leaders such as AutoGrid, Claroty, Element Analytics, and Sense. They recently closed on investments with Titan AES, a novel Li-ion battery management system, and Synapticon, an advanced motion control platform for industrial robots, and anticipate investing in 10 or more new startups annually.

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