Grant Allen

Grant Allen is a Venture Partner with Giant Ventures in London. Previously, Grant was a cofounder and General Partner of SE Ventures, the venture capital arm of Schneider Electric SE. His focus is on emerging technologies and their role in the digital transformation of industries, the built environment and the enabling electrical ecosystem. Current investment interests include next-generation transportation, proptech, energy orchestration/efficiency, AI/machine intelligence, IoT, robotics, cybersecurity and lightweight enterprise SaaS where Schneider can be a value add partner and/or market catalyst. An expert in corporate innovation and a venture investor for 12 years, Grant was also the global head of venture capital for Zurich-based ABB where he sat on the Technology Leadership Committee helping steer technology investment across the company and reporting to the CEO. He was instrumental in growing ATV’s investment budget, team size, scope and impact, helping ATV become the most active CVC in the robotics/applied AI space behind Google. Past investments include Bonsai AI (acq. by Microsoft), Industrial Defender (acq. by Lockheed Martin), Validus (acq. by ABB), Persimmon Technologies (acq. by Sumitomo), Trilliant (acq. By Undisclosed), CMR Surgical, Element Analytics, Enbala, Kespry, Soft Robotics and Vicarious. Previous experience includes Core Capital Partners, a $400M venture fund focused on enterprise software; Microsoft in their Mobile & Embedded Devices division; Jingle Networks (First Round Capital-backed search startup acq. for $63M); and several other start-ups. He is also an active angel investor (30+ personal investments including AltSpace VR, Carta, Catawiki, Dexterity, Dishcraft Robotics, DrillingInfo, Earnest, Skillshare, Uber, Visually, Wagestream, Zume) and a founding member of NextGen Venture Partners (acq. by Brown Advisory). Listed on Global Corporate Venturing’s Powerlist 100 for three years and a member of the World Economic Forum’s Technology Pioneer selection committee, Grant has been an invited speaker in over a dozen countries and a featured writer for Bloomberg Businessweek. He holds degrees from Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering and The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He has also completed executive education at IMD Business School in Lausanne, Switzerland. An east coast native who has lived in Europe and Australia, Grant now lives in Los Altos, California with his wife and three children.