Get all your news in one place.
100's of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Fortune
Fortune
Technology
Jim Edwards

What the head of IBM’s $500 million AI and quantum venture fund is looking for in a startup

Lisbon , Portugal - 11 November 2025; Emily Fontaine, Global Head of Venture Capital, IBM, on the New Venture Summit stage during day one of Web Summit 2025 at the MEO Arena in Lisbon, Portugal. (Credit: Photo By Carlos Rodrigues/Sportsfile for Web Summit via Getty Images)

Emily Fontaine is the global head of venture capital at IBM. The company’s venture fund, IBM Ventures, is a $500 million fund currently focused mostly on AI and quantum computing. So far it has made 23 investments in companies including Hugging Face (tools for machine learning), Not Diamond (optimizes the choice of AI model on a task-by-task basis), Unstructured (which structures data for LLMs), QEDMA (error correction in quantum computing), and Reality Defender (deepfake detection software).

Fontaine talked to Fortune recently about what she is looking for when she invests.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100's of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.