In a bid to inject larger amounts of money in early stage startups located in India, North America, Japan, and the rest of Asia, a Japanese venture capital firm Incubate Fund has launched $91 Mn fund called Incubate Fund III.
The fund will also focus on other sectors include media, entertainment, gaming, online commerce, logistics, medical, financial, real estate, and housing. Earlier, e-commerce firm, Rakuten had also launched a $100 Mn fund.
The fund was raised from Limited Partners including Innovation Network Corporation of Japan, Yahoo Japan, Sumitomo Mitsui Bank, Development Bank of Japan, Tencent Holdings, Sega Sammy Holdings, Mistletoe, TBS Holdings, and Mixi.
The company said, “we aim to create and develop Japan’s next generation of industry by working closely with our Limited Partners, who invested in our fund.”
It has already invested $2 Mn in US-based driving app startup, Drivemode last month. In coming days, more investments in US will be carried out as per the new trend.
Earlier in 2014, Japanese telecommunications giant SoftBank went on an investment spree in India. It has become the largest investor in the Indian e-commerce segment after $90 Mn in Housing.com, SoftBank’s overall investment in Indian e-commerce stands at about $1 Bn. The company earlier said, it intends to invest about $10 Bn in India over the next few years.
In October, the company had invested $627 Mn in Snapdeal.com, while about $210 Mn was injected into ANI Technologies’ taxi-booking service Ola Cabs and also Housing.
