Between cloud services, social marketing and plenty of available capital, launching a company has never been easier. The result is an unprecedented amount of start-up activity as entrepreneurs take advantage of a number of tech-based trends, including the ubiquity of mobile devices, the focus on behavioral data, evolution of video and the emergence of new commerce models. At Comcast Ventures, we are responding to the pace of change by growing our team and expanding our categories of interest to include big data, cloud services, education and consumer health. We now have 13 investment professionals based in Philadelphia, New York, San Francisco and Palo Alto, and between the offices and across the verticals, we have met and logged hundreds of companies.
With the increased activity comes a greater commitment to support our portfolio companies by building relationships within Comcast and NBCUniversal. Our ongoing partnership efforts with Comcast and NBCUniversal can be seen in the Snow White and the Huntsman promotion on Flipboard, metro Ethernet access with EdgeConneX, Xfinity Home from iControl Networks and the introduction of Vitrue as a social strategy partner to NBCUniversal’s RFP process.
It is these initiatives and the enormous value-add they represent to our portfolio companies that set Comcast Ventures apart and allow us to approach venture differently. By working together we have the ability to jump-start exciting new businesses and take Comcast and NBCUniversal in exciting new directions.