Posted by Tokyo, Japan: Fujitsu has set up Fujitsu Ventures Fund LLC, a corporate venture capital (CVC) fund worth10 billion yen to invest in tech startups. The 10 billion yen ( approx. over 90 million USD) fund will be operated by the subsidiary Fujitsu Ventures Limited.
With 99.9% investment, Fujitsu Limited is the majority investor in this new fund while its subsidiary Fujitsu Ventures Limited has only 0.1% investment.
The 10 year- investment period fund will target investments in promising tech startups globally, mainly in Japan, the US, Europe and Israel. The company called its new fund a key tool in a growth investment strategy to drive innovation and digital transformation (DX).
It started to establish its CVC fund in the early 2000s. The Japanese ICT major announced its first CVC fund in 2006, followed by the second and third fund were established in 2010 and 2015 respectively.
Fujitsu has made investments leveraging these funds in promising startups both in Japan and abroad. After establishing these funds and investing in startups, the Tokyo headquartered company came up with its FUJITSU ACCELERATOR program in 2015. The program aimed to boost co-creation venture activities.
The accelerator program has successfully promoted cooperation with more than 100 global startups in the tech space during the past five years. However, Fujistu’s top management took a major decision last year to form a strategic growth and investment team.
This team has the main task is to lead Fujitsu Group’s inorganic activities which include investments into startups.
The Japanese ICT company is the world’s fourth-largest IT services provider by annual revenue IBM, Accenture and AWS. It considers partnering with dynamic startups as a key priority in today’s competitive business environment.
According to the company, engaging with promising tech startups serves as an engine for growth through innovation and DX. It established a new digital transformation (DX) focused company, Ridgelinez Limited last year.
The company will establish a new CVC fund to further enhance the strategic growth and investment team’s startup investment capabilities and will further amplify the impact of its growth investment strategy.
Fujitsu will make investments to reinforce the foundation of innovative technologies that underlies DX. And creates new business opportunities via collaboration between startups and the company by leveraging the FUJITSU ACCELERATOR program.