Panasonic Corporation in an announcement today revealed it is set to launch a new venture capital firm named Panasonic Ventures, LLC, this April. The firm which will be based out of California will specifically target startups operating in the United States. With an initial corpus of about $100 million, the company will new external venture capitalists, will overlook tech giant’s investments in startups.
The venture capital firm will curate the startups that showcase unique business models or products and services not bound by the company’s existing business fields.
Masahiro Kinoshita, Director, Panasonic Corporation of North America, will take over as the President of the new company. The Japanese multinational firm is seeking to form new businesses to fuel its future growth through these investments. It also intends to associate with these firms to explore new business opportunities.
Panasonic Corporation is renowned for the development of diverse electronics technologies and solutions for users in the consumer electronics, housing, enterprise solutions, automotive, and device industries.
It has a global presence and operates 474 subsidiaries and 94 associated companies worldwide. Recently at an event held in Delhi, it unveiled two new budget smartphones, namely Eluga Ray Max and Eluga Ray X. These smartphones come packed with the AI-virtual assistant – ‘Arbo’. It will be interesting to see the feedback and demand of the phones, taking into consideration the launch of Samsung’s new phones.
Panasonic is also the sole battery supplier for a range of Tesla vehicles including Model S, Model X and the yet to come Model 3. It is mulling over to extend its partnership with Tesla beyond batteries in a bid to move deeper into automobile manufacturer.
It is also exploring other options and other fields it can partner with Tesla such as solar cells. It is already looking to invest over 30 billion yen in one of the latter’s factories that are working on photovoltaic cells and modules.
