Yanmar Ventures
Yanmar Group's CVC for early-stage deep tech in food production, climate, labor saving and user experience
🇯🇵 Osaka, Osaka Prefecture · Founded 2021
Seed to Series B·Co-invests
Yanmar Ventures is the corporate venture capital arm of the Yanmar Group, the Japanese maker of diesel engines and agricultural and heavy machinery. It was set up in Osaka in April 2021 and is led by co-founder and CEO Nobuyuki Oda. It invests mainly in early-stage deep tech startups in Japan and overseas, and makes its own investment decisions as general partner of its funds. A Business Creation team links portfolio companies to Yanmar Group resources. It opened an office in the Netherlands in 2024.
What they invest in
We mainly invest in early-stage startups, to support their growth and to co-create with us. We focus on four areas: sustainable food production, global warming measures, labor saving and improving user experience.
- Stage
- Seed to Series B
- Role in a round
- Co-invests
- Fund
- Fund II · ¥5B ($32.5M) · set up Feb 2024
- Food & agri tech
- Climate tech
- Clean energy
- Labor-saving tech
- Deep tech
- Japan
- Global
How to pitch
Openfor introduces founders whose company fits the criteria above.
Open to
- Co-investment
Co-invests alongside other funds. Offers portfolio companies co-creation with Yanmar Group businesses through its Business Creation team.
Portfolio
At least 15 investments since 2021, mostly early stage, with rounds from seed to Series B. Sectors include agri-food tech, clean energy, edge AI chips, quantum computing, robotics and industrial IoT. Most named companies are in Japan; Amogy is in the United States.
Some of the companies they have backed
The portfolio at a glance · 15 companies · 2021–2026 · 2 exits
Sectors
- Agricultural robotics7%
- Agtech7%
- Biotechnology7%
- Cellular agriculture7%
- Other60%
Stage when they invested
- Seed20%
- Series A7%
- Series B7%
Where the companies are
- 🇯🇵 Japan60%
- 🇺🇸 United States7%
15 companies named on the fund's site, CB Insights, Caplight and Crunchbase, as of Oct 2026. The fund's own portfolio page lists only six.
Co-investors and partners
Funds that invested in the same rounds.
