Toyota Partners with OurCrowd to Hunt for Israeli Innovation
OurCrowd acts as a scout seeking for Toyota innovations in autonomous driving, smart cities, digital health, environment and big data in agriculture.
Toyota Tsusho Corporation, the trading arm of the Toyota Group has announced on Wednesday a strategic partnership with Israel venture capital crowdfunding platform OurCrowd to obtain and invest in Israeli innovation companies worldwide.
The global network, with portfolio of 200 promising startups, OurCrowd will act as a technology scout and source seeking innovative products and services. Toyota is interested in Autonomous driving with a focus on sensors, image recognition, data compression, and security. But also target technologies in other sectors such as smart cities, MedTech, digital health, environmental technologies and big data in agriculture.
“The future belongs to the bold who are implementing game-changing technologies,” said Minoru Murata, executive vice president, regional CEO & CTO of Toyota Tsusho.
“Toyota Tsusho and its 58,000 employees all over the world are proud to be leaders in our focus industries but to ensure our future leaders. We must identify, invest and work with startups who are changing the world we live in. Our partnership with OurCrowd will bring us these key technologies and leaders to work together on the next generation of global challenges.”
The equity investment platform, OurCrowd, founded six years ago by Jon Medved, a serial entrepreneur, and venture capitalist. OurCrowd has raised $1.28 billion in commitments from almost 40,000 registered, accredited investors from more than 180 countries. It has made investments in 200 companies and funds and marked 35 exits to date.
OurCrowd’s Corporate Innovation Program aims to utilize its 13 global offices to connect industry-leading corporations with promising startups.
Jon Medved, Founder, and CEO of OurCrowd said, “Toyota Tsusho’s unrivaled platform can deploy new technologies and products quickly and effectively in over 120 markets around the world. This is good news for startups and good news for the world.”
Read more about: Israeli Startups, Israeli Technologies, Jon Medved, OurCrowd, Toyota
