TDK Ventures: Japan's Deep-Tech Giant Makes India Its Second-Biggest Bet

TDK Ventures is the corporate venture-capital arm of Japan's TDK Corporation, headquartered in San Jose with investment teams in San Jose, Boston, Bengaluru and Tokyo. Set up in 2019, it manages $500 million across four funds — a $50 million 2019 vintage fund and three $150 million funds (Fund 2, the climate-focused Fund EX1 for North America and Europe, and Fund 3, a global deep-tech fund launched in April 2025). The firm's own site counts 55 portfolio companies, one IPO and six acquisitions.

Its thesis is hardware-led deep tech, split across two megatrends: energy transformation (EX) — new energy generation, transmission and storage, from geothermal and nuclear fusion to solid-state transformers and sodium-ion batteries — and digital transformation (DX) — semiconductors, mobility, space-tech, robotics and industrial tech. It typically enters at Series A, writing initial cheques of up to $5 million and up to $15 million per company including follow-ons, targeting a 10-20% stake and board seats, and it prefers to lead or co-lead. President Nicolas Sauvage describes three investment criteria: financial return (the firm expects $20 back for every $1 invested), the strategic value it brings, and the startup's contribution to society and the planet — selecting roughly one company out of every 200 it reviews, and holding investments for 10 to 12 years as patient capital.

India has become the firm's second-largest investment destination after the US, with seven companies backed out of 56 investments worldwide. The conviction is grounded in TDK's own footprint: five component manufacturing facilities and large battery plants in India employing nearly 5,000 people.

The biggest Indian bet: Ultraviolette, the Bengaluru motorcycle maker, which received $21 million from TDK Ventures in 2025 as part of a $66 million Series E tranche (alongside $45 million from Zoho Corporation and Lingotto), followed by a $85 million round in September 2026 co-led by TDK Ventures and Yali Capital, with participation from Lip-Bu Tan, Chairman of Walden International. Capital is funding scale-up of the F77 and X-47 motorcycles, the upcoming Tesseract scooter and Shockwave enduro bike, and a targeted US entry in 2027.

In EV infrastructure, TDK Ventures first invested in Exponent Energy's Series B in 2023 and in June 2026 co-led a ₹200 crore ($21.1 million) round with 360 ONE Asset, alongside Hitachi Ventures, to expand its 15-minute rapid-charging network beyond Bengaluru and Delhi. In space-tech, it co-led a $20.5 million Series A for Ethereal Exploration Guild with Accel and Prosus for a fully reusable medium-lift launch vehicle. In agritech, it co-led a $12 million Series A for Fasal in 2023. The Pune-based industrial-AI platform Infinite Uptime, led by Dr Raunak Bhinge, took TDK Ventures investment in 2023, though the amount was not disclosed.

Founder support centres on TDK Goodness — portfolio access to TDK's R&D, manufacturing and global group companies rather than a formal credits or perks programme, which the firm does not publicly offer. The India thesis is run day-to-day by Investment Director Ravi Jain under Sauvage, and their message to deep-tech founders is consistent: monetisation signals arrive late in hardware, so what India needs most is patient capital across Series B and beyond.