Jun 17, 2025

Jun 17, 2025 • GCV reporters Roy Bahat, head at Bloomberg Beta, is one of the 100 leading corporate venturing professionals in our 2025 Powerlist. It is difficult to say precisely how many side hustles Roy Bahat has on the go at any one time. Besides running Bloomberg Beta, a VC fund which counts the financial, technology and media company Bloomberg as its sole investor, he can lay claim to being a blogger, political activist, teacher and one-time union adviser. Before entering VC, he was vice president of Rupert Murdoch’s media conglomerate, News Corp., in the mid-2000s. He then became president of the company’s then-subsidiary, IGN Entertainment, an outlet focused on video games, which he led for 18 months. He joined Bloomberg Beta when it was launched in 2013 and has run it ever since. The fund was originally set up with $75m to invest in tech startups. Five more $75m funds have followed since then, and Bloomberg Beta now counts 240 investments on its website. Its investment focus is “the future of work”. The fund’s operating manual (which has been published online) describes this with reference to the way in which startup technologies such as those used for HR management, employee collaboration, cloud computing and cybersecurity can bring innovation to the workplace. Recent investments include Campus.edu, an online education provider that uses professors from elite universities, and Anagram, the makers of an AI-powered cybersecurity platform. “Work is broken in America, and it is tearing our society apart.” According to the operating manual, the fund prefers to back founders that believe they are exceptional, even to the point of delusion: “We have passed on companies because we did not think the founders were crazy enough,” he says. Bahat maintains a blog that also touches on work and the way industry, in his view, needs to think about it. This is not an idle hobby. He once advised the first Starbucks unioniser on how to organise to get a better deal. And since 2011, he has taught a course to UC Berkeley MBA students on how to lead a unionised workforce. Picking up on the theme in his blog, Bahat says, “work is broken in America, and it is tearing our society apart. “For the past decade, I have put that issue – making work work – at the centre of my professional life.” The Global Corporate Venturing Powerlist represents the 100 individuals spearheading the future of the corporate venturing industry. These individuals excel in terms of their venturing approach and structure, number and quality of portfolio companies and in their contributions to the corporate venturing profession.