Grant Allen is a General Partner in the Investments Practice of SE Ventures, a $565M venture capital fund backed by Schneider Electric. Based out of Palo Alto, California, Grant focuses on emerging technologies and their role in the digital transformation of industries, transportation, the built environment and the increasingly distributed and decarbonized electrical ecosystem.
A recognized expert in corporate innovation and a venture investor for 12 years, Grant was most recently the global head of venture capital for Zurich-based ABB where he reported to the CTO and sat on the Technology Leadership Committee helping steer technology investment and R&D strategy across the company. 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 where his investments included OLO and Infinite Power Solutions; Microsoft in their Mobile & Embedded Devices division; Jingle Networks (First Round Capital-backed search startup acq. for $63M); and several other start-ups.
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, a featured writer for Bloomberg Businessweek, and an angel investor in over 30 companies. 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.
