Mach49 responds to the unprecedented demand from Global 1000 companies to accelerate corporate venture investments.
REDWOOD CITY, CA, July 25, 2023 – Mach49the growth engine for global companies, announces Kevin Ye And Chris Cusack as managing partner of the law firm venture investments practice. In their new roles, Ye and Cusack will expand Mach49’s capacity to help companies around the world drive growth through venture capital, strategic partnerships and venture acquisitions.
Led by a team of experienced venture capitalists, Mach49 designs and accelerates corporate venture capital (CVC) entities. By enabling companies to think and act like powerful VCs, Mach49 helps them leverage their unique assets – people, resources, knowledge and customers – to create value and be on the right side of disruption.
Since 2020, the Ye and Cusack team has designed and backed mutual funds for some of the largest companies in the world.
“We have an incredibly talented team of experienced investors,” said Cusack. “Our focus is to drive inorganic growth through well-coordinated partnerships, investments and acquisition strategies, and these capabilities are fully integrated at Mach49.”
“The growth we’ve seen over the past three years shows us that CVC should be a tool in every company’s toolbox,” says Ye. “While some people have assumed that they shouldn’t consider risk investing during a market downturn, we see the opposite. Businesses are reaching out to us at an unprecedented rate, recognizing that this is a good time to get early on in deals they may not have had access to before.”
This multifaceted strategy bridges the corporate and startup worlds and enables new forms of impact and collaboration. Risk investing enables companies that would otherwise compete for market share to work together to diversify risk and address the world’s toughest challenges.
“Corporate venture investing is a powerful way for companies to make a big impact on global issues like climate change,” said Mach49 Founder and CEO Linda Yates. “Every corporate dollar well invested unlocks ten more dollars from other investors to do the important work that is needed in the world.”
Among those accomplishments is TDK Ventures, which worked closely with Mach49 in 2019 to design and launch its first $50 million corporate venture fund. TDK’s corporate venture capital arm has since recorded four exits from its Fund 1 portfolio and announced an additional $300 million for two funds, the newer Fund EX1, which focuses on Europe and North America-based electrification and decarbonization startups. Today, Mach49 continues to support TDK Ventures by supporting their venture capital discipline in all of their early-stage investments in clean technology and advanced materials companies such as Ascend Elements, AM Batteries and Verdagy.
“Corporate VC is difficult, you have to be both a very good financial VC and a very good strategic CVC,” says Nicolas Sauvage, President of TDK Ventures. “Mach49 helps us think about investing from a financial VC perspective, and this ultimately leads to the entire VC ecosystem having confidence in our corporate VC design and execution.”
Ye and Cusack, both of whom joined Mach49 as Venture Investing Partners, have been instrumental in this partnership and Mach49’s work with clients such as Goodyear Ventures, Halliburton Labs, Hines Global Venture Lab, Hypertherm Ventures, Vale Ventures, Zeon Ventures and others.
An active investor and advisor for more than a decade, Cusack has led advisory relationships with a number of Global 2000 companies including BHP, Delta Air Lines, Deutsche Telekom and Whirlpool to drive VC fund formation and operations, partnership strategies and digital M&A. He also previously held various roles at Village Capital, a global early-stage venture fund and accelerator helping entrepreneurs solve critical problems in healthcare, financial services, climate and education. Cusack has a BS in Economics and a BA in Public Policy from Duke University.
Ye is a longtime expert in the corporate venture world, having previously worked as a consultant for groups such as Barrick Gold, DeNA, Southwest Airlines and UPS Ventures before joining Mach49. Through his work as an active angel investor and LP, he enjoys supporting start-ups and venture capital funds and is passionate about promoting economic development through venture capital, which previously led to several years as a consultant for New Zealand Trade & Enterprise. He holds degrees in Bioengineering and Corporate Finance from the University of Pennsylvania.
About Mach49
Mach49 works with global companies to build their growth engines through risk building, venture investing, risk transformation, strategic partnerships and targeted mergers and acquisitions. We are 100% focused on execution, helping our clients disrupt existing markets and create new ones to drive meaningful growth.
The firm is a unique cadre of successful serial entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and C-level executives who have collectively generated over $60 billion in market value throughout their operating careers in companies they have invested in, managed, founded or built. Mach49 was founded by Linda Yates, author of “The Unicorn Within: How Companies Can Create Game-Changing Ventures at Startup Speed” (HBR Press, October 2022) – named “The 10 best business books of 2022” by Forbes and recently by Malcolm Gladwell and Dan Pink as one of “7 Startup Books Every Entrepreneur Should Read.” Mach49 is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices in Redwood City, Boston, London and Amsterdam. www.mach49.com
