Sriram Viswanathan
Sriram Viswanathan
Born
Sriram Viswanathan

(1955-10-28) October 28, 1955 (age 69)
San Francisco, California, U.S.
Occupations
  • Technology entrepreneur
  • investor
Known forIndusAge Global
TitleFounding Managing Partner at WRVI Capital, Founder of IndusAge Global, Vice President of the Intel Architecture Group (IAG) and General Manager of Intel's Incubation and Innovation Group (IIG)
Board member ofWRVI Capital, IndusAge Global, Intel Architecture Group (IAG), Intel's Incubation and Innovation Group

Sriram Viswanathan[1] is a Silicon Valley-based technologist and venture capitalist, and currently a founding managing partner at WRVI Capital, a technology venture capital firm.

Education

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Viswanathan holds a masters in business administration from UCLA Anderson School of Management in 1997. He also earned a bachelor of science in Physics from American College, in 1984, and a bachelor of science in Computer Science and Automation from India’s premier University, the Indian Institute of Science in 1987.

Career

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Viswanathan began his career in 1987 as a software engineer at Wipro, one of India’s earliest software and services companies. He then joined Covansys Inc., a systems integration and consulting services firm in Detroit Michigan, as the head of the firm’s emerging technologies practice. In this capacity, he led many advanced technology projects with IBM, Chrysler Corporation (officially FCA US LLC), and Ford Motor Company.

Viswanathan joined Intel Corporation’s Intel Architecture Labs Group in 1993, where he was assigned to work for CEO Andrew Grove to support the executive office’s marketing efforts. In this capacity he led Intel’s efforts in Hollywood. In 1996, Viswanathan was instrumental in the creation of Intel/CAA Media Lab, a joint venture between Intel and the leading Hollywood talent agency, Creative Artist Agency. During his tenure as the head of the Media Lab from 1996 to 2000, he was part of the team that drove many of Intel’s early investments in Internet companies.

These activities in the early days of the Internet, driven by Intel’s corporate business development, led to the creation of Intel Capital in 1998 (www.intelcapital.com). Viswanathan was a founding team member and senior executive for one of Intel’s largest investment portfolios of Intel Capital, which was led at the time by Intel Corporate Vice President Avram Miller. Investments in this role were globally focused in the areas of mobile content and services, communication infrastructure, and mobile platforms. [1,2,4,5]. In 2002, Viswanathan was appointed as the head of the broadband and wireless sectors of Intel Capital, and drove many investments pertaining to the connected home and wireless technologies. Subsequently, he was appointed as the head of the Wireless Fund at Intel Capital, driving early investments to promote WiFi as part of Intel’s strategy to launch Centrino Mobile Technology.

Viswanathan then was appointed as vice president[2] of Intel Capital, and head of the wireless program office of the Intel Architecture Group. In these roles he drove Intel’s overall strategy in WiFi, WiMAX/4G, and global business development.

Viswanathan’s accomplishments at Intel twice earned him the prestigious Intel Achievement Award in 1999 and 2003, and Intel Divisional Awards on numerous occasions.

Following his tenure at Intel, Viswanathan remained active in the space by speaking at industry events on the topics of entrepreneurship, wireless and broadband technologies. He founded IndusAge Partners, a venture capital firm specializing in investing in US-India technology corridor companies, and then became a founding managing partner at WRVI Capital.

In addition to his work at WRVI Capital, Viswanathan is currently on the boards of Clairvolex, QuadGen Wireless, CloudLeaf, Quartic.AI, Datometry and Movandi. He has also been a Senior Advisor to ATIC, Mubadala, UAE and a Strategic Board Advisor to Bahwan CyberTek. He is a Board Member of Aravind Eye Hospitals in India, and an Advisory Board member to Gooru Learning in California. He is also a Board Trustee at the World Affairs Council.

Other contributions

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Viswanathan has been an active charter member for The Indus Entrepreneur (TiE), a Silicon Valley non-profit supporting start-ups through networking and the raising of capital for new and experienced entrepreneurs; served on the Kofi Annan committee for the United Nations Information and Communication Technologies Task Force (UNICT), and has served as an advisor to the State Department for President Obama’s visit to India and on multiple topics of innovation and infrastructure to further collaboration between the US and India.

References

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  1. ^ Sriram Viswanathan, CrunchBase, Retrieved October 16, 2020
  2. ^ Intel director to speak at WCA, RCRWireless News, Retrieved October 16, 2020