US Subsidiaries · Automotive / Venture capital
Suzuki launches a $100 million Silicon Valley venture fund
- Parent
- Suzuki Motor (Hamamatsu, Shizuoka)
- New US unit
- Suzuki Global Ventures, L.P. (corporate venture fund), Silicon Valley, California
- Value
- $100M fund
- Status
- Set up in October 2022. Managed by WiL, a Palo Alto and Tokyo venture firm.
- Date
- 2022-10-04
Suzuki set up Suzuki Global Ventures, a $100 million corporate venture capital fund based in Silicon Valley. It invests in startups directly and through other venture funds, in areas such as mobility, carbon neutrality, agritech, health tech, Industry 4.0, digital transformation and fintech. The fund is run by WiL rather than by Suzuki's own staff.
Why it matters
Suzuki is strongest in India and Japan, so a US fund is its way to see new technology early. Using an outside manager is a common route for Japanese companies that lack venture investors of their own. Strictly, this is a fund rather than an operating company.
About WiL
World Innovation Lab, known as WiL, has offices in Palo Alto and Tokyo. It links startups in the US and Asia with large companies, mainly Japanese ones, and also helps its investors run their own corporate venture programs.
Suzuki's reasons
President Toshihiro Suzuki noted that the company itself began in 1920 as a small start-up making weaving looms. Suzuki wants the fund to be its entry point to the startup world and to speed up work with startups on problems facing customers in Japan, the US, India and elsewhere.
Sources
Kakehashi M&A News home
