Several Toyota Camrys lined up at the dealership.
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Toyota Ventures, the Silicon Valley venture capital arm of Japanese automaker Toyota, on Wednesday announced two $150 million funds for early-stage startups in areas such as AI, robotics and renewable energy.
Toyota Ventures Frontier Fund II and Toyota Ventures Climate Fund II target deep and climate technologies and build on Toyota’s existing Frontier Fund and Climate Fund launched in 2021. There is. The new capital will increase Los Altos, Calif.-based Toyota Ventures’ assets under management. 800 million dollars.
“At a time when some investors are scaling back, we are doubling down on our original Frontier Fund and Climate Change Fund,” Jim Adler, founder and general partner of Toyota Ventures, said in a statement. We are expanding the scale.” “With breakthrough advances in generative AI, electronic fuels, space commercialization, carbon capture, and synthetic biology, this is a critical time for Toyota to make this investment.”
To date, Toyota Ventures claims its portfolio spans 75 companies around the world. Virgin Frontier Fund also owns New Zealand-based biosensor maker Centian Bio and New York Stock Exchange-listed aircraft maker Joby Aviation, which is expected to be owned by South Korean billionaire Choi Tae-won in 2022. in partnership with his conglomerate SK.
About a quarter of Toyota Ventures’ portfolio companies will be eligible for the first-ever climate fund, which will focus on “smart, scalable solutions” to combat climate change. These companies include Vow, an Australian food tech startup featured on Forbes’ 2022 Asia 100 Companies to Watch list, which produces lab-grown meat from animal cells. In 2022, Vow raised $49.2 million in a Series A funding round led by Australian VC Blackbird and Prosperity 7, the venture arm of oil giant Aramco.
Toyota Ventures was founded in 2017 and began as Toyota AI Ventures, a subsidiary of Toyota Research Institute. The company changed its name to its current name in 2021, and Toyota invested an additional $300 million in the arm. In addition to Toyota Ventures, Toyota operates Woven Capital, a startup investment arm focused on “growth-stage” ventures in the automation and clean energy sectors. Woven’s six portfolio companies include AI and machine learning startup Nuro, which has raised more than $2 billion from investors including SoftBank, Baillie Gifford, Fidelity, Greylock and Tiger Global; are doing.
Toyota doubled its hybrid vehicle sales, expanded its model lineup, and had a year of record sales. In 2023, Toyota’s worldwide sales, including the Lexus, Daihatsu, and Hino brands, totaled 11.2 million units. Operating profit from April to December of the same year doubled from the same period last year to 4.2 trillion yen ($27.7 billion).
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