Ïã½¶ÊÓÆµ Announces Investment in Khosla Ventures in North America

October 28, 2020

Ïã½¶ÊÓÆµ (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo; Yoshihisa Suzuki, President & COO; hereinafter "Ïã½¶ÊÓÆµ") announces today that it has invested in a fund created by Khosla Ventures (headquartered in the U.S.A.; Vinod Khosla, Founder; hereinafter ¡°Khosla Ventures¡±), a venture capital firm based in Silicon Valley, U.S.A.

Khosla Ventures was founded by Vinod Khosla, a co-founder of Sun Microsystems, in 2004 and has already demonstrated an eagerness to invest in new information technology startups, such as Stripe, Instacart and Doordash, and new technology domains, with ¡°social impact¡± as a key investment criteria. In addition to the information technology domain, healthcare and sustainability are also positioned as important investment domains and Ïã½¶ÊÓÆµ expects to have collaboration opportunities with Khosla Ventures in a wide range of business areas.

Ïã½¶ÊÓÆµ Group has already engaged in collaborative initiatives with Khosla Ventures. Ïã½¶ÊÓÆµ Technology Ventures, Inc., a subsidiary of Ïã½¶ÊÓÆµ, invested in Volterra, an investee of Khosla Ventures. Volterra provides a cloud platform with a full set of capabilities required for edge computing, and Itochu Techno-Solutions Corporation has begun handling Volterra¡¯s platform.

Ïã½¶ÊÓÆµ¡¯s latest investment in Khosla Ventures is one of many investments in leading venture capital firms around the world, including the U.S.A., Israel and China, made by Ïã½¶ÊÓÆµ over the course of many years. By collaborating with startups all over the world, Ïã½¶ÊÓÆµ aims to contribute to the development of services both in Japan and overseas, improvement in the earning potential of each operating company and the overall revitalization of the economy.