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NTTVC is an independent venture capital firm formed in collaboration with NTT.
NTT Venture Capital (NTTVC) operates as an independent venture capital firm established in partnership with the global technology service provider, NTT. The firm's core activity involves providing strategic investments to early-stage companies across the technology spectrum. NTTVC distinguishes itself by offering its portfolio companies not only capital but also invaluable access to NTT's extensive global network and technological ecosystem, thereby fostering a collaborative environment for growth.
Vab Goel, an experienced entrepreneur and venture capitalist, founded NTTVC, publicly launching the firm and its initial fund in October 2020. His foundational insight stemmed from the conviction that emerging startups require a distinctive global advantage to navigate and succeed in today’s competitive market landscape. This perspective informed the firm’s unique partnership model, which integrates an agile investment approach with the resources of a large enterprise.
NTTVC’s focus lies in partnering with founders who possess a clear vision and the drive to build transformative technology companies. The firm’s mission is to invest in pioneering startups, enabling them to realize their creative and technological ideas for the future of enterprise and healthcare. By backing these change-makers, NTTVC aims to contribute to shaping the next generation of technological advancements.
Key people at NTT Venture Capital.
# NTT Venture Capital: Bridging Enterprise Scale with Startup Agility
NTT Venture Capital (NTTVC) is an independent venture capital firm launched in 2019 as a strategic partnership between venture capitalist Vab Goel and NTT, a Fortune 100 global technology services provider.[1][4] The firm's mission centers on helping startups achieve rapid global scale by leveraging the unique intersection of venture capital expertise and access to NTT's massive enterprise ecosystem—spanning 75 million mobile subscribers, 3 million businesses, and 120,000+ enterprise customers across over 80 countries.[1][2]
NTTVC's investment philosophy emphasizes a partnership-driven model rather than traditional venture capital approaches. The firm invests broadly across technology sectors with particular emphasis on the future of enterprise, digital health, and innovations powered by AI, machine learning, and data.[2][4] With its $500 million inaugural fund, NTTVC operates as a returns-driven investor while simultaneously creating two-way value creation opportunities between portfolio companies and NTT's global infrastructure and customer base.[2]
Vab Goel, the firm's founder, brings two decades of venture capital experience, having served as a Partner at Norwest Venture Partners for 19 years before establishing NTTVC.[1] His background as both an entrepreneur and investor—including founding and investing in Virtela, which NTT acquired seven years prior to NTTVC's launch—provided the foundational insight for the partnership model.[2]
The genesis of NTTVC emerged from Goel's direct observation of NTT's commitment to the startup ecosystem following the Virtela acquisition. Rather than treating startups as external entities, NTT demonstrated a genuine capacity to help cutting-edge technologies reach global scale. This experience crystallized into a deliberate strategy: create an independent, agile venture capital firm that could harness NTT's unparalleled reach and customer relationships to accelerate startup growth.[2] The firm's founding team collectively brings experience from founding, advising, scaling, and investing in over 100 startups, grounding the operation in practical entrepreneurial understanding rather than purely financial metrics.[1]
NTTVC's defining characteristic is its structural integration with NTT's enterprise ecosystem. Unlike traditional venture firms that operate independently, NTTVC portfolio companies gain direct access to NTT's $22 billion+ global systems integration business, customer relationships, and technical expertise.[6] This creates a competitive moat: startups can sell to, through, and with NTT, dramatically accelerating go-to-market timelines compared to bootstrapped or traditionally-funded peers.[1]
The firm provides what it terms "unfettered access to the voices that matter"—industry experts, customers, entrepreneurs, business leaders, system integrators, and service providers across the US, Europe, and Asia.[2] This network advantage translates into superior market intelligence and customer validation opportunities that most venture firms cannot replicate. Portfolio companies gain insights from NTT's interactions with 120,000+ enterprise customers, creating a real-time feedback loop for product-market fit validation.[2]
NTTVC's team emphasizes personal attention and hands-on support rather than passive capital deployment. The firm typically leads or co-leads investment rounds and maintains conviction-based follow-on capital availability across all stages.[2] This operator-first methodology reflects the team's direct experience as founders and venture capitalists rather than financial engineers.[1]
By concentrating on enterprise, digital health, AI, machine learning, and data-driven innovations, NTTVC aligns portfolio company growth with NTT's existing customer pain points and service capabilities.[2][4] This creates natural synergies rather than forcing artificial partnerships, increasing the probability of successful customer acquisition and scaling.
NTTVC represents a meaningful evolution in how large technology incumbents engage with startup ecosystems. Rather than establishing corporate venture arms that often operate at arm's length, NTT created a genuinely independent fund that maintains venture capital discipline while leveraging enterprise relationships as a scaling accelerant.
This model addresses a critical market dynamic: the acceleration of winner-take-all dynamics in technology markets.[2] Startups face unprecedented pressure to scale rapidly or risk irrelevance as competitive moats widen. Traditional venture capital, while providing capital, often leaves founders to navigate customer acquisition, enterprise sales processes, and global expansion independently. NTTVC's partnership model compresses these timelines by providing both capital and immediate access to enterprise distribution channels.
The timing of NTTVC's 2019 launch proved prescient. The subsequent years witnessed accelerating digital transformation across enterprises, particularly in cloud infrastructure, AI/ML applications, and healthcare technology—precisely NTTVC's focus areas.[4] NTT's position as a trusted enterprise technology partner gave portfolio companies credibility and customer access that would typically require years to build independently.
Furthermore, NTTVC influences the broader ecosystem by demonstrating that large technology service providers can be genuine partners to startups rather than acquirers or competitors. This legitimizes the startup ecosystem within enterprise organizations and creates new pathways for innovation adoption at scale.
NTTVC has positioned itself at an inflection point in venture capital evolution. As enterprises increasingly recognize that transformative innovation originates outside their walls, the firm's model—combining venture capital returns discipline with enterprise distribution—becomes increasingly valuable.
The firm's emphasis on AI, machine learning, and data-driven solutions aligns with the most significant technology trend of the 2020s. As enterprises struggle to operationalize AI and extract value from data, NTTVC portfolio companies solving these problems gain exponential tailwinds. The partnership with NTT provides these companies with enterprise credibility and customer access that would otherwise require substantial sales and marketing investment.
Looking forward, NTTVC's influence will likely expand beyond its $500 million fund. Successful exits from early portfolio companies (such as Zoba, which is scaling rapidly in the urban mobility sector) will validate the partnership model and potentially attract additional capital commitments.[4] The firm may also inspire similar structures among other large technology service providers seeking to maintain relevance in an innovation-driven market.
The critical question for NTTVC's evolution is whether it can maintain venture capital returns discipline while serving NTT's strategic interests. The best outcomes occur when these incentives align—when portfolio companies genuinely benefit from NTT relationships rather than being pressured into suboptimal partnerships. Early evidence suggests the firm has navigated this tension thoughtfully, but sustained success will depend on maintaining this balance as the portfolio matures and exit opportunities emerge.
Key people at NTT Venture Capital.
