A host of Japan-headquartered corporates have contributed to a $175m early-stage fund closed by US and Japan-based venture capital firm Draper Nexus, managing director Q Motiwala told TechCrunch yesterday.
There about 20 limited partners for the fund, including electronics manufacturers Panasonic, Hitachi and Kyocera, construction firm Shimizu, IT equipment provider NEC and imaging technology producer Canon. The fund, which was launched in May 2015, has now closed.
The fund is the firm’s second, after a $50m fund it closed in 2013. Draper Nexus portfolio companies include cybersecurity software producers Cylance and vArmour, and analytics technology developer Klout, which was acquired by Lithium Technologies for $200m in early 2014.
Motiwala said: “We invest in companies that are not just exciting to us, but where we know we can bring some customer or channel partnership advantages to them. The large corporations in our fund have skin in the game.”
Draper Nexus will look to invest around 80% of the money in early-stage deals, similar to the first fund. It provides up to $5m as part of a series A round and $250,000 for a seed round.
The fund will target cybersecurity, business-focused big data, artificial intelligence, robotics, transportation and mobility technology developers. About a third of Draper Nexus’s team is located in Japan and the rest in California.
In addition, Draper Nexus plans to form an accelerator-like initiative for enterprise software, services or hardware companies, through which it will invest $50,000 to support the formation of joint projects between the startups and various corporate partners.