OurCrowd and Toyota Tsusho Corporation Announce Partnership to
Support a New Wave of Tech Collaboration

Jerusalem / Tokyo – Oct. 23, 2019 –  OurCrowd, the global venture investing platform and Israel’s leading venture investor, and the Toyota Tsusho Corporation (Toyota Tsusho), one of Japan’s general trading companies and a member of the Toyota Group, which comprises of 17 companies including Toyota Motor, Denso etc., have today announced a new business and technology scouting partnership. OurCrowd will act as a technology scout and source innovation and investments in both Israel and worldwide. The partnership combines the strength of OurCrowd’s Israeli and global network, robust deal flow pipeline and growing portfolio of 200 promising startups along with the broad reach and core values of Toyota Tsusho to seek innovative products and services in their key business sectors of Mobility, Resources & Environment, Life & Community.

The focus of the scouting agreement will be to seek out next generation startup leaders in the areas of Autonomous driving with a focus on sensors, image recognition, data compression, and security. Moreover the partnership will seek out disruptive technologies in a diverse group of other sectors such as smart cities, medtech, including cancer examination, digital health, environmental technologies, and big data in agriculture.

Minoru Murata Executive Vice President, Regional CEO & CTO of Toyota Tsusho said,  “The future belongs to the bold who are implementing game changing technologies. Toyota Tsusho and its 58,000 employees all over the world are proud to be leaders in our focus industries, but to ensure our future leadership we must identify, invest and work with startups who are changing the world we live in. Our partnership with OurCrowd will bring us these key technologies and leaders to work together on the next generation of global challenges.”

Jon Medved, Founder and CEO of OurCrowd said,  “We are proud to be partnering with a general trading company such as Toyota Tsusho. Not only do they represent a 70 year tradition of excellence in global business, but they are focused on solving real global problems. Together we can help startups turn into “scaleups” by providing access to Toyota Tsusho’s unrivaled platform that can deploy new technologies and products quickly and effectively in over 120 markets around the world. This is good news for startups and good news for the world.”

OurCrowd is a unique innovation and investment platform that connects investors and startups around the world, and has already raised over $1.28B in funding commitments and has made investments in 200 diversified companies and funds. OurCrowd will help funnel Israeli and other technology startups that support the Toyota Tsusho Corporation’s core values to leverage the collective force and innovative spirit in order to further penetrate global markets in Mobility,  Resources & Environment, and Life & Community.

Laly David, OurCrowd’s Business Development Partner, will spearhead this effort along with OurCrowd’s 13 global offices, said, “We support the Toyota Tsusho Group way of “Genchi, Genbutsu, Genjitsu,” which means “On Site, Hands on, In touch.” This means a lot to OurCrowd and will guide our work and our collective mission with our partners at Toyota Tsusho and the startups in our community.”

OurCrowd continues to expand its newly launched OC Innovate program to provide multinationals with the ability to stay ahead of the latest innovation trends globally by providing access to Israel’s bustling tech startup community. For more information click here.

Note to Editors

About the Toyota Tsusho Corporation: Toyota Tsusho has long developed its business with functions tailored to customers’ needs and with original added value by leveraging its general trading and project management company functions, such as information collection and the logistics and financial functions necessary to import / export and broker domestic business transactions. We are also engaged in the development and investment business, working with partners all over the world to accelerate investment in fields in which future growth is expected. More information, please visit https://www.toyota-tsusho.com/english/

About OurCrowd: OurCrowd is the leading global equity crowdfunding platform for accredited investors. Managed by a team of seasoned investment professionals and led by serial entrepreneur Jon Medved, OurCrowd vets and selects companies, invests its own capital, and invites its accredited membership of investors and institutional partners to invest alongside in these opportunities. OurCrowd provides support to its portfolio companies, assigns industry experts as mentors, and creates growth opportunities through its network of strategic multinational partnerships. The OurCrowd community consists of almost 37,000 registered investors from over 183 countries. Rated “the most active venture investor in Israel” by Pitchbook, OurCrowd has $1.28B in commitments and has made investments in 200 companies and funds. OurCrowd already has 35 exits to date. OurCrowd exits include: Beyond Meat’s IPO (NASDAQ:BYND); JUMP Bikes sold to Uber, Briefcam sold to Canon, Argus sold to Continental, Crosswise sold to Oracle, and Replay sold to Intel. To join OurCrowd as an accredited investor, visit www.ourcrowd.com.

About the OurCrowd Global Investor Summit: Where the startup world gathers

The 2020 OurCrowd Global Investor Summit is one of the premier events in the tech industry, and the largest business conference in Israel. The 2020 Summit will take place February 13.  In 2019, over 18,000 people from 189 countries registered to attend what has become the fastest-growing tech conference in the world. The Summit provides unprecedented insight into the world of startup venture capital, with exclusive exposure to cutting-edge technologies, the entrepreneurs behind them, and the corporate leaders deploying them. Top investors, venture capitalists, corporate partners, entrepreneurs and journalists come from around the world to get business done. The Summit anchors a week of events that include corporate meetups, VC forums, insider access to accelerators and labs, and cultural excursions, as well as nightly opportunities for great food, drink and networking with the global crowd.  As Forbes reported, Summit Week in Israel was “the place to be.” Thousands more will participate through livestreaming.  Learn more at summit.ourcrowd.com

For Press Materials: http://blog.ourcrowd.com/toyota/ 
https://www.toyota-tsusho.com/english/press/ 

Press contact:

Estee Yaari, OurCrowd
IL: +972 50-200-7072
estee.yaari@ourcrowd.com

Kazunori Mori, Country Manager, Toyota Tsusho Corporation
Israel: +972-54-794-5519
Kazunori_mori@ttcil.com