The Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance’s new venture capital fund has accepted five investments in four months amounting $50 million and will present another to its supervisory board in the upcoming week, the fund’s head stated.
The alliance stated in January it was establishing the fund with strategies to invest about $1 billion over five years, the recent move by major automakers as they look to adapt industry change by investing in startups.
“The idea is we will do one new investment a month,” Francois Dossa, the head of Alliance Ventures, informed Reuters by phone prior this week’s Ecomotion conference in Tel Aviv, Israel.
It has invested in Ionic Materials, a U.S.-based firm that develops and delivers solid polymer electrolyte material for batteries; French-based Kalray that has developed a microprocessor that can be utilized in autonomous driving; and Shift, a Silicon Valley platform to buy and sell used vehicles.
It also invested in Sinovation Ventures, itself a Chinese fund concentrated on artificial intelligence, and has made a decision to put money in Israel’s Maniv Mobility, another vehicle technology fund also backed by Jaguar Land Rover and Valeo.
