SEATTLE — Citi Ventures is investing in fintechs that focus on data security and developer productivity this year and is already eyeing an expanding portfolio for 2023.

Citigroup’s venture capital subsidiary has an investment plan that answers the question: “What are the interesting companies and trends and how does that intersect with the strategic needs of Citi?” Matt Carbonara, managing director of venture investing and lead of enterprise IT investments at Citi Ventures, shared Monday during the panel discussion “RPA & Beyond: Investors on What’s Next in Banking Technology” at Bank Automation Fall 2022 in Seattle.

“Ultimately, what we want to do is be an investor in that space that we think is relevant to Citi and try to accelerate the adoption of that [technology] into Citi,” Carbonara said.

Citi Ventures, which sits under $2.3 trillion Citi’s finance organization, invests in enterprise technologies including cybersecurity; developer tools; and cloud, data and artificial intelligence technologies, Carbonara said. Additionally, it looks at fintech investments that focus on payments, commerce and lending.

Looking ahead to 2023, Citi Ventures has its investment sights focused on:

1. Cybersecurity automation: Earlier this year, Citi Ventures invested in San Jose, Calif.-based Concentric.AI, which conceptualizes documents for data leakage protection to ensure they have the right policies behind them, Carbonara said.

“That’s an element of automation that took something out of somebody’s hands and had to write rules that can now automate that using machine learning in order to understand the content of that document,” he added.

Concentric.AI has raised a total of $22 million over two funding rounds. Citi Ventures participated in the second funding round, according to Crunchbase.

2. Software supply chain security: Software supply chain security is “one of the largest factors in all companies now,” Carbonara said, noting, “When you grab a resource or get software from somebody you trust, how do you know that they weren’t compromised?”

3. Developer productivity: Citi Ventures continues to look for technologies that provide its developers with efficiencies that aid in recruitment, Carbonara said.

The company invested in Palo Alto, Calif.-based Docker, a startup that helps developers maintain a tight local loop for testing containers they’re designing on their desktops, he said.

“It’s an element of automation: how do you bring that developer environment into the development so that they can actually write code — not click a button and go away for 30 minutes and come back and find out if it worked or not,” Carbonara said.

Editor’s Note: A previous version of this story stated that Citi Ventures reported to the CIO. The story has been corrected to state that Citi Ventures sits under Citi’s finance organization. It is the policy of Bank Automation News to correct factual errors in reporting.