Japan-headquartered insurance group MS&AD Holdings has added ¥9bn to an investment unit managed by its US-based corporate venture capital arm, MS&AD Ventures, tripling the size of the vehicle to ¥13.5bn ($128m).
Founded in October 2018, MS&AD Ventures targets developers of risk, insurance and financial technologies at seed to series B stage across the world, supplying roughly $500,000 to $3m per deal.
The unit has made more than 20 investments so far and its portfolio companies include US-based artificial intelligence (AI) technology developer Node, Israel-headquartered cybersecurity software provider VDoo and Germany-based speech recognition technology developer i2x.
The corporate said it increased the fund’s investment ceiling to further encourage digitisation efforts by way of open innovation. Its areas of interest include AI, cybersecurity, smart mobility and insurance technology.
MS&AD companies Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance and Aioi Nissay Dowa actively partner the unit’s portfolio companies and have already established strategic alliances with VDoo, enterprise cybersecurity platform developer Lucideus and weather analytics software provider Jupiter.
The group’s initiatives are also in line with sustainable development goals set out by the United Nations, it said in a statement, aiming to tackle questions such as global warming and biodiversity protection through advanced technologies and innovative products and services.
