The company is allocating $700m to backing startups that can help it transform its business portfolio.
Japanese conglomerate Mitsubishi Corporation has established an investment arm, MC Global Innovation (MCGI), to help deepen the company’s engagement with startups. Mitsubishi Corp is the latest in a spate of Japanese companies to launch their venture funds at a time when other corporations are either spinning off their units or closing them down.
Headquartered in Tokyo, MCGI will have Mitsubishi Corp as its sole operating partner and will invest from the balance sheet rather than having a separate, dedicated fund. The company has allocated some $700m to startup investments, including existing commitments.
Kengo Morimoto, who has served various roles within Mitsubishi Corp over a two-decades-plus tenure, has been appointed as chief executive officer of MCGI.
Up to now, Mitsubishi’s business units have invested in startups individually, but this is the first time the corporation has had a company-wide CVC unit.
MCGI will invest in seed to later stages, with a focus on early stage across a broad range of sectors, with the intention of finding business opportunities beyond MC’s existing domains.
In a press release the company said it was looking to “transform its business portfolio’ amid the “uncertainty driven by rapid technological advances such as AI”.
Until recently, MC’s business groups have invested in technologies closely related to their preferred domains of natural gas, industrial materials, petroleum and chemicals, mineral resources, industrial infrastructure, automotive, food and consumer industry, power solutions and urban development.
