Hitachi Ventures

Hitachi Ventures is the venture capital arm of Hitachi, the Japanese industrial group, and it runs from Munich as Hitachi Ventures GmbH. Its homepage says it invests in four themes: HV Digital, HV Industrial, HV Environment and HV Healthcare. The site counts 60 portfolio companies, more than $1B in assets under management and four funds.^[1]

The structure differs from many corporate funds. TechCrunch reported in 2025 that Hitachi is the only limited partner, that the investment committee is made up of the firm's partners, and that they do not have to run investments past Hitachi. Partner Pete Bastien told TechCrunch the firm still works closely with Hitachi to help portfolio companies learn what a future customer wants. Partner Gayathri Radhakrishnan was direct about the limits: "We can put you in front of Hitachi, but your product needs to sell itself."^[2]

Series A is the center of the strategy. Radhakrishnan called it "the sweet spot" in the same article, and Wolfgang Seibold said first investments average around $5 million, with around 55% of the fund held back for follow-on rounds. Global Corporate Venturing wrote in 2026 that the firm leads or co-leads most of its rounds, often takes a board or board observer seat, and reviews more than 2,000 startup opportunities a year.^[2],[3]

Hitachi announced the unit in April 2019 and set up Hitachi Ventures GmbH in Munich that June. Stefan Gabriel, a former president of 3M New Ventures, was named CEO. The first fund, then called the Hitachi Ventures Fund, began with $150M. Hitachi said it would invest in early-stage startups with rapid growth potential and deepen its collaboration with them.^[4],[3]

A second fund, HV Fund II, followed in October 2021 at $150 million, aimed mainly at environment and healthcare startups. In April 2023 Hitachi announced a third fund of $300 million, twice the size of the first two, to back digital themes such as Web3 and generative AI. By then the two earlier funds held 21 startups.^[5],[6]

The fourth fund, HV Fund IV, was reported by TechCrunch in February 2025 at $400 million, again with Hitachi as the sole backer. Hitachi's statement said the new fund took its venture investments to $1 billion since 2019, and it named quantum computing, nuclear fusion, bioengineering and space among the areas it wants to cover. The firm does not publish returns or the size of individual holdings.^[2],[7]

The team page lists Stefan Gabriel as CEO and Managing Director, Wolfgang Seibold as Chief Investment Officer and Partner, Pete Bastien as President and Partner, and Gayathri Radhakrishnan and Tobias Jahn as Partners. It describes a team of over 8 nationalities with backgrounds in industry, academia, founding and venture. Global Corporate Venturing says Gabriel set up and led 3M's venture unit before earning a PhD on corporate venture capital.^[8],[3],[4]

Global Corporate Venturing lists offices in Munich, Palo Alto, Boston and Bengaluru. The team page adds a Head of India and Investment Director, Radhika Ananth, who appears on the deal team for Indian portfolio companies.^[3],[8],[9]

The portfolio page lists companies across all four themes, including Aalo Atomics, Arcee AI, Bioptimus, Captura, Infravision, Precision Neuroscience, Scimplify, WEKA, Zenity and Ascerta. Aalo Atomics is listed as a Series A nuclear company in Texas.^[9]

The firm's own homepage posts show recent activity. It backed Precision Neuroscience in a $250M Series D, backed Ascerta, formerly Pay-i, in an $18M Series A, and led a $6.5M seed round in Trmeric. TechCrunch also named Ascend Elements, Thea Energy, Wase, Ema, StrikeReady and Makersite as earlier investments.^[1],[2],[8]

Does Hitachi Ventures need Hitachi's approval to invest? According to Bastien in TechCrunch, no. The partners form the investment committee. Will an investment lead to a Hitachi contract? Not by itself. The firm can make introductions, and Global Corporate Venturing says it has facilitated more than 200 collaboration projects between portfolio companies and Hitachi business units over six years, but Radhakrishnan told TechCrunch the product has to sell itself.^[2],[3]

Does it lead? Global Corporate Venturing says it leads or co-leads most rounds. The firm also invests alongside others and lists deal teams by company on its portfolio page.^[3],[9]