IBM Corp. today debuted a new corporate investment vehicle, the Enterprise AI Venture Fund, through which it plans to back startups building enterprise-focused artificial intelligence products.

The move comes as other tech giants also ramp up their investments in the AI startup ecosystem. A few weeks ago, large language model developer Anthropic PBC secured funding rounds worth up to $6 billion from Amazon.com Inc. and Google LLC. More recently, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. and SAP SE joined a $500-million-plus investment into German AI provider Aleph Alpha GmbH.

Through its Enterprise AI Venture Fund, IBM intends to back “early-stage to hyper-growth” startups. Axios reported that the company will place a particular emphasis on startups with products optimized for specific industries or use cases. According to the publication, IBM will avoid backing emerging AI providers that directly compete with existing portfolio companies.

Besides capital, startups backed by the Enterprise AI Venture Fund will also receive go-to-market support. That support is set to take the form of opportunities to establish partnerships with IBM. Additionally, portfolio companies will receive access to “operational expertise on product and engineering and go-to-market strategies.”

IBM already made a number of AI startup investments prior to the launch of the fund. In September, it backed a $50 million round for HiddenLayer Inc., which develops a platform designed to protect language models from cyberattacks. IBM earlier joined a $235 million investment in Hugging Face Inc., the operator of a popular GitHub-like platform for hosting open-source AI models.

“AI is slated to unlock nearly $16 trillion in productivity by 2030,” said Rob Thomas, IBM’s senior vice president of software and chief commercial officer. “With the launch of the IBM Enterprise AI Venture Fund, we’re opening another channel to harness the enormous potential of the AI revolution into tangible, positive outcomes for IBM and the companies we invest in.”

The fund is part of a broader effort by the company to expand its presence in the fast-growing AI market. The initiative also encompasses IBM’s product development strategy.

Earlier this year, the company debuted a broad suite of AI products called watsonx. The offering includes tools that companies can use to develop AI models and manage those models’ data. Additionally, watsonx provides prepackaged neural networks optimized for tasks such as software code generation. 

A few months after introducing the product suite, IBM teamed up with NASA to release an open-source AI model for analyzing satellite data. The model is designed to help researchers more easily identify areas that may be at risk of flooding and wildfire. IBM plans to add support for additional use cases down the road.

Photo: IBM