Applied Ventures Research
Investment Thesis
Applied Ventures, LLC is the corporate venture capital arm of Applied Materials (NASDAQ: AMAT), the largest supplier of semiconductor manufacturing equipment. Its stated mission is to invest in startups with disruptive technologies that advance or complement Applied Materials' core strengths in materials engineering, semiconductors, displays and related manufacturing. The firm describes its approach as investing across the "materials to systems stack" in deep technology. It says it has helped pioneer smart phones, AR/VR, driverless cars, big data, life sciences, robotics, cleantech and advanced materials.
Strategic Value to Startups
The firm pitches strategic access rather than capital alone. Early-stage companies can validate high-performance devices and scale faster using Applied Materials' materials engineering, semiconductor technology and global fab infrastructure. It also connects startups with global customers, supply chain partners and co-investors from other corporate and financial venture firms. It runs the ASTRA (Applied Startup Technology and Research Accelerator) program, with editions in Korea and India, to source startups.
Stage Focus
Applied Ventures describes itself as stage agnostic. Recent activity ranges from seed and Series A rounds (Summer Robotics Series A, Salience Labs Series A) to later growth rounds in portfolio companies such as Ayar Labs and Celestial AI.
Check Size and Fund Size
The firm says it invests up to $100M per year in total. No per-deal check size is published, so none is recorded. Third-party profiles put assets under management around $400M, but that figure is not stated by the firm and is not recorded here.
Lead Tendency
The firm both leads and follows. It led Salience Labs' Series A and Summer Robotics' Series A, and co-led Spin Memory's Series B extension. It participates as a strategic co-investor in many larger rounds alongside firms such as Intel Capital, Lockheed Martin Ventures and Playground Global.
Recent Activity
- Sep 2025: Led Summer Robotics' Series A.
- Feb 2025: Invested in Salience Labs' Series A (photonic AI interconnect).
- Nov 2024: Invested in OLED microdisplay company.
- Dec 2023: Invested in VVDN Technologies.
- Jun 2023: Invested in LeadOptik, metasurface optics.
- Mar 2022: Strategic investment in Cornami.
The firm reports over 90 portfolio companies across 19 countries and more than 10 IPOs.
Portfolio Highlights
The portfolio page lists 65 companies; only the first page of 12 could be read. These include 3D Glass Solutions, Absolics (glass substrates for advanced packaging), Adaptive3D (acquired by Desktop Metal), Adesto Technologies (IPO 2015), Advanced Inquiry Systems, Avegant (light field displays), Ayar Labs (optical I/O), BT Imaging, CREPA Materials, Chipletz, Cornami and DeviceScape. Other named holdings from the news page include Syntiant, Metalenz, MakinaRocks, Ionblox, eXo Imaging, Infinitum, Scintil Photonics, Solid Energy, Ultivue, Rockley Photonics and Spin Memory. Exits include Adesto, Twist Bioscience and Enjet (KOSDAQ).
Team
- Omkaram Nalamasu: SVP, CTO and President of Applied Ventures
- Faran Nouri: AVP, Global Head
- Saewook Lee: Senior Investment Director (rejoined in 2025)
- Abhishek Sud: Senior Investment Director
- John Wei: Senior Investment Director
- Steven Konsek: Investment Director, photonics and displays
- Rajesh Ramanujam: Investment Director
- Blair Georgakas, Yuan-Ping Huang, Walter Liu: Principals
Decision Process
As a corporate venture fund with Applied Materials as sole limited partner, decisions are made by an internal investment team and are tied to strategic fit with the parent. A partnership-style process is assumed; the firm does not publish details.
Founder Preferences
Deep technology founders, often university or lab spinouts, building hardware, materials or semiconductor-adjacent systems where fab access and materials engineering expertise help validation and scale.
Geographic Focus
Global. The firm cites investments in 19 countries, with regional programs and pages for the US, Europe, Israel, India, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and China. Headquarters is Santa Clara, California.