Large Japanese companies increased investments in start-ups 27 times in 5 years

Japanese companies increase funding for start-ups. The amount invested in start-ups by large corporations through its own funds and other funds in 2017 reached a record high of 68.1 billion yen.

The creation of Japanese corporate venture companies was first dealt with by many large corporations from the Internet and communications, but recently one by one companies are being established in a wide range of areas, for example, in manufacturing and real estate.

French company Renault, Japanese Nissan and Mitsubishi have created a corporate venture company to invest in such growing areas as autonomous driving and artificial intelligence. It was stated that within 5 years the company invested up to 1 billion US dollars.

Until now, major Japanese companies, both in the creation of new products and in other activities, demonstrated a clearly expressed tendency to do everything, relying only on their own strengths, and did not engage in active investing in start-ups. However, now in Japan, the concept of "Open Innovation" has been entrenched, which involves the use of third-party technologies to create its new technologies and products.