Honda Expands Global Open Innovation Initiative with New VC Partners

Honda XceleratorHonda Innovations, the Mountain View, CA-based arm of Honda R&D, has announced four venture capital (VC) partnerships.

The new partners include:
– 360 Capital Partners, a European VC firm headquartered in Paris, France, that invests across Europe in innovative deep-tech with a focus on robotics, mobility, and industrial innovation.
– JB Nordic Ventures, a newly launched VC fund and partnership between BaltCap, the largest private equity and VC firm in the Baltic region, and JBIC IG Partners, a Japanese government backed private equity and VC firm. The fund focuses on IT, robotics, and mobility for Baltic, Iceland and Scandinavia.
– SOSV, a VC firm headquartered in the USA, with a focus on accelerating startups in hardware, mobility, cross-border software, food and life sciences in San Francisco, New York, London, Shenzhen, Shanghai and Taipei.
– Yunqi Partners, a VC firm in Shanghai and Beijing China, that invests in companies focusing on enterprise service, IOT, robotics, and mobility.

These partnerships expand Honda’s support of global innovation through Xcelerator operations in major technology hubs around the world, including Israel, Boston, Detroit, Japan, China, and Europe.

Since 2015, Honda Xcelerator has supported startups with funding for rapid prototyping, collaborative workspaces, mentorship opportunities, and access to all Honda products including test vehicles and robotics prototypes.
With a broad focus, Honda Xcelerator looks beyond automobiles to create future mobility products and services that bring new value to the customer experience.

Honda Xcelerator takes a non-exclusive approach of co-development, investment, and incubation contributing to the overall growth of startups, including DeepMap, Tactual Labs, and WayRay, advancing technologies that focus on challenges posed by autonomous vehicles and advanced connected cars.
A recent strategic partnership between Honda and SoundHound, an innovator in voice-enabled AI and conversational intelligence technologies, aims to accelerate the development of voice-enabled AI assistant.

FinSMEs

05/12/2018

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