Japan-based venture capital firm DNX Ventures has added corporates including insurance provider Tokio Marine Holdings to the limited partners (LPs) of its third fund, which has a target size of ¥30bn ($277m).
Corporates having signed up to the fund also include financial services firm Mizuho Bank and industrial, mining and petroleum group JXTG Holdings.
They were joined by the Japanese state-mandated Organization for Small & Medium Enterprises and Regional Innovation, which provided ¥4bn ($37m), roughly 15% of the target, making it the largest LP to date.
Payment services firm JCB, electronics manufacturer Hitachi and investment management firm First Brothers already committed capital this past February, together with IT systems integrators Kyocera Communication Systems and Hitachi Solutions.
Founded in 2011 as Draper Nexus Ventures, DNX Ventures invests in business-to-business startups based in the US and Japan in sectors such as construction, healthcare and education.
The third fund will focus on early-stage developers of cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, autonomous driving, cloud software-as-a-service, industrial internet-of-things and financial technologies, having backed TableCheck and AdacoTech earlier this month.
DNX Ventures closed its second fund at $175m in 2016, with contributions from corporates including Hitachi, Kyocera, general contractor Shimizu, IT equipment producer NEC, electronics manufacturer Panasonic and imaging technology producer Canon.
