Frontier Fund II and Climate Fund II have each received $150m to further explore technologies like AI and renewable energy for the carmaker.
Jim Adler, founder and general partner of Toyota Ventures. Image courtesy of Toyota Ventures.
Toyota Ventures, an early-stage corporate venture capital arm of Japanese carmaker Toyota, has raised an additional $300m for two funds.
Toyota Ventures Frontier Fund II (TVFF II), which targets technologies including AI, robotics, mobility, cloud and quantum computing, received half of the capital while the other $150m went to hydrogen and renewable energy-focused Toyota Ventures Climate Fund II (TVCF II).
Formed in 2017, Toyota Ventures is headquartered in San Francisco and its more than 75 portfolio companies are based in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific. With the latest capital allocation, the unit now has $800m under management.
TVFF II will be led by Frontier Fund partner David Sokolic. Its first fund’s investments included space debris removal service Starfish Space, nanotechnology biosensor producer Scentian Bio and Haiqu, which develops quantum computing software tools.
Climate Fund partner Lisa Coca is leading TVCF II. Fusion microreactor Avalanche Energy, energy storage technology developer e-Zinc and green hydrogen producer Ecolectro are among the initial fund’s portfolio.
“At a time when some investors have scaled back, we’re scaling up by doubling down on our initial Frontier and Climate Funds. With seismic breakthroughs in generative AI, e-fuels, space commercialisation, carbon capture and synthetic biology, it’s a crucial time to be investing for Toyota,” Jim Adler (pictured), founder and general partner of Toyota Ventures, said in a statement.
