The Home Depot announced Home Depot Ventures, a venture capital fund created to identify, fund, and partner with early-stage companies to accelerate emerging technologies that aim to improve the customer experience and shape the future of home improvement, according to the company. The $150 million fund aims to invest in companies that advance the retailer’s ability to provide an interconnected shopping experience, develop new and differentiated capabilities, and extend its low-cost provider position to better serve customers and associate and deliver operational excellence.
The company plans to improve its service to customers by simplifying how people invest in their homes throughout milestones of homeownership and evolving how professional customers efficiently manage and grow their business. The investments will improve the lives of associates and enable them to collaborate more safely and efficiently to meet the rapidly changing expectations of customers, according to Home Depot.
“With Home Depot Ventures, we’re lending our support and expertise to enable rapid scale of innovation,” Richard McPhail, executive vice president and chief financial officer of The Home Depot, said in a news release. “This is an exciting opportunity to find and scale the next big ideas in technology and retail.”
According to Home Depot, the fund will consider investment opportunities in businesses at various stages of development, with an emphasis on early and growth stage companies that solve challenges for Home Depot customers and show potential to scale. Home Depot Ventures will provide growing companies with direct access to expertise and the expansive footprint of the broader enterprise, according to the company.
