Applied Ventures was founded in 2006 as the corporate venture capital arm of Applied Materials, the global nanomanufacturing technology leader, established to bring strategic venture investing in-house and align it directly with the parent company's innovation roadmap. Under Global Head Anand Kamannavar, who joined the same year, the fund has grown from an initial $25 million annual allocation into a genuinely global, stage-agnostic platform investing $25-50 million per round and up to $100 million annually across semiconductors, advanced materials, AI, and deep tech. The firm reviews roughly 700 applications a year and selects just five or six new investments, backing companies like Metalenz, a Harvard spinout in engineered optics, and PsiQuantum in quantum computing, while Kamannavar has personally led more than a dozen exits including NASDAQ listings for Enphase Energy and Adesto Technologies. Applied Ventures now manages more than $400 million across 90-plus companies in 17 countries.
Enphase Energy's NASDAQ IPO - one of more than a dozen exits Global Head Anand Kamannavar has led, alongside Adesto Technologies' NASDAQ listing and Voltaix's acquisition by Air Liquide