Japan logistics giant Yamato sets up $46.5M fund to work with startups

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From left: Global Brain CEO Yasuhiko Yurimoto, Yamato Holdings President Yutaka Nagao
Image credit: Yamato Holdings

Abridged from our original post on the Japanese edition.

Tokyo-based VC firm Global Brain announced on Tuesday that it has formed a new fund together with Japanese logistics giant Yamato Holdings (TSE:9064). The fund is named Kuroneko Innovation Fund and worth 5 billion yen, or $46.5 million US.

With an aim to promote digital transformation in the logistics industry, the fund is focused on investing in Japanese and foreign startups with technologies and business models evolving logistics and supply chain management.

The fund’s ticket size is from 50 million yen to hundreds of million yen (from $460,000 to several million US dollars) while investees can also leverage resources owned by Yamato Holdings and its group companies.

Yamato Holdings has partnered with C2C (consumer-to-comsumer) marketplace app Mercari as well as Japanese e-commerce platform Base, giving their sellers better user experience by integrating with logistics solutions.

Yamato Holdings published a grand design calling for business structure reform earlier this year, suggesting that the fund is a part of such efforts.

From Yamato’s grand design. (Click to enlarge.)
Image credit: Yamato Holdings