The fund also appointed Mia Panzer as its first chief operating officer to help them scale effectively across funds, regions and teams.
Michiko Kato has been appointed as chief investment officer at Woven Capital, Japanese carmaker Toyota’s growth-stage venture fund.
In the newly created role, Kato will oversee the investment team and the portfolio support function, lead overall investment strategy and join the board of managers as a voting member.
Kato has been with Woven Capital since its launch in 2020 and has helped lead investment activities and expand the operational platform.
Before joining Woven Capital, Kato was chief financial officer at Japan-based AI startup Abeja and has also worked in investment and M&A roles at Unison Capital, International Finance Corporation (World Bank Group) and Morgan Stanley.
The fund also appointed Mia Panzer as its first chief operating officer. She will be responsible for finance, operations and organisational scale to allow Woven Capital to expand across multiple funds and regions.
Panzer moves to the fund following multiple senior roles at Woven by Toyota, the most recent being head of corporate strategy. Prior to joining Woven by Toyota, she was the finance and operations leader at spatial AI company Carmera, where she played a key role in negotiating its sale to Toyota and supporting its integration into Woven by Toyota.
The appointments follow shortly after the launch of a $800m fund focused on later-stage startup investments, indicating Woven Capital is entering a new phase of deployment and portfolio management. Its mandate remains closely tied to strategic investments that can support Toyota’s broader push in mobility, software and adjacent technologies, while strengthening links between portfolio companies and the parent group’s business units.
The appointments also come a few months after Ro Gupta replaced George Kellerman as the managing director of Woven Capital. The leadership expansion likely reflects a wider trend across corporate VC as established units mature beyond an initial launch phase. As fund sizes grow and mandates broaden, CVCs are increasingly adding dedicated operating and investment leadership roles to professionalise governance, improve portfolio oversight and align more closely with parent-company strategy.
See all the recent deals by Woven Capital in the CVC Funding Round Database
