Toyoda Gosei will establish a Corporate Venture Capital Department in January 2019. This new department will serve as the company’s centre for ‘flexible and swift investment in start-ups and venture capital to accelerate open innovations for practical application and commercialisation of new technologies and products’, it says.
Toyoda Gosei formulated its medium and long-term business plan, the 2025 Business Plan, in May 2018 as a guide to acting flexibly and rapidly in a dramatically changing business environment. In a key area of activities in the Plan, “Venture into Innovation and New Mobility,” the company is developing e-rubber, a next-generation artificial muscle for robots and other applications, modular automotive products with human-machine interface functionality that will serve as a bridge between humans and automobiles in autonomous driving, and other new technologies and products.
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In order to commercialise them, the Corporate Venture Capital Department will invest quickly in start-ups that are promising for synergy with Toyoda Gosei’s core technologies. The department will have an operating budget of JPY3bn (US$26m), and will invest it for a period of two years starting in January 2019.
Outline of new department
Name: Corporate Venture Capital Department
Operating budget: JPY3bn
Period of investment: January 2019 to December 2020 (2 years)
Investment targets:
1. start-ups with resources and technical abilities in the following four fields:
(1) Robotics, (2) Semiconductors, (3) Next-generation automotive parts, and (4) Materials
2. Venture capital to gather information on the above start-ups
