Comparative Analysis of Japanese and Western Corporate Venture Capital

Abstract

Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) is one of methods to facilitate open innovation for companies, and the companies have invested in startups by CVC for a long time in the world. In Japan, more and more large companies have established their CVC, and they have invested in the startups in the last five years to follow up American and European companies. However, while American companies have already implemented investments in startups for a long time and have succeeded in obtaining returns from the investments by their CVC, the effects of the investments by Japanese companies are still unclear, and many failures has been reported in Japan.

This thesis focuses on a comparison analysis of Japanese CVCs with Western CVCs. In this thesis, I will research a purpose, investment policy, prioritized return and operations management for their CVC, and conduct a comparative analysis between Japanese and Western CVC by leveraging public resources and personal insights obtained from interviews. I research pioneers in both Japanese and American CVC in high tech field, then we analyze a comparison of Japanese, American and European CVCs in heavy industry. To deepen the analysis of the latest Japanese CVCs, I research other Japanese CVCs which focus on digital transformation fields.