Germany-headquartered automotive manufacturer Volkswagen intends to set up a €300m ($356m) corporate venture capital fund, chairman Herbert Diess revealed in a LinkedIn post on Tuesday.
The cash will be allocated to startup companies as well as decarbonisation initiatives, and Diess named robotic taxis, car sharing and vehicle electrification as crucial branches in the decarbonisation of the private transport sector.
The still unnamed fund is the first to be formally launched by the carmaker. It has not been among the most frequent corporate venturers in the automotive space but has made several large late-stage investments.
Volkswagen put up $620m to co-lead a $2.75bn private placement for advanced battery manufacturer Northvolt in June this year, and had provided $2.6bn in capital and assets for autonomous driving software developer Argo AI in a mid-2019 deal valuing it at $7bn.
The company invested $300m in transportation management software developer Gett in 2016 and had committed the same amount to solid-state battery developer QuantumScape as of June 2020. It scored an exit through TuSimple’s $1.35bn initial public offering five months ago.
Another Germany-based automotive manufacturer, BMW, launched a $300m second fund for its BMW i Ventures subsidiary in June this year. A third, Daimler, spun off its 1886Ventures research hub into a separate entity in December 2020, while Porsche is also an active investor.
Photo courtesy of Volkswagen AG.
