Originally published here.
Since its founding in 1935 in Japan, TDK has led electronic materials and technology innovation, from pioneering ferrite cores to revolutionizing cassette tapes. Today, it’s a global leader in passive components, sensors, batteries, power supplies, and electronic solutions, powering everything from smartphones to automotive, industrial automation, and healthcare. While deeply embedded in modern devices, TDK’s mission goes further shaping the future of technology through innovation and impact.
As industries undergo transformations in energy, mobility, and digital infrastructure, TDK is evolving alongside them. To deepen this impact, TDK Ventures was launched in 2019 — a corporate venture capital (CVC) arm dedicated to supporting early-stage startups that align with our vision for a more sustainable, connected world.
A vision for transformation and Impact Scaling
TDK Ventures is committed to tackling global challenges such as energy transition, urbanization, and digital evolution. At the heart of our mission lies the recognition that entrepreneurs focused on environmental and social impact are crucial “Impact Scalers” who can help address major global challenges like climate change and inequality. These Impact Scalers are characterized by their sense of purpose, dream of improving lives globally, and the grit to see their visions through despite the long development timelines often required for breakthrough technologies to achieve widespread adoption.
By embracing innovation, we aim to drive sustainable change over the next decade. TDK Ventures plays a key role in this strategy, not just by providing funding, but through long-term support, resources, and corporate partnerships that help scale solutions to achieve global impact. We act as a bridge between TDK and emerging technologies that will shape the future.
The origins of TDK Ventures
Inspired by his experience at Stanford’s Executive Program, Nicolas Sauvage collaborated with Taro Ikushima, then head of corporate planning at TDK, to propose a venture arm that could enhance TDK’s ability to identify breakthrough technologies earliest. The result was TDK Ventures: a platform to invest in deep-tech startups while staying true to TDK’s mission of creating social and environmental value.
Since its inception, TDK Ventures has built a global team spanning the U.S., U.K., Japan, India, and China, investing in 43 startups, [JE1] including three that became unicorns — Ascend Elements, Groq, and Silicon Box. These investments reflect our commitment to leveraging cutting-edge advancements in materials science, energy, and sustainability to address critical global needs.
Redefining the CVC model
TDK Ventures takes a long-term, equal-partnership approach, distinguishing itself from earlier CVC models. Instead of transactional investments, we focus on meaningful collaborations, providing startups with access to TDK’s extensive resources, including product validation, supply chain expertise, and market insights to name a few
A key pillar of our approach is our Scaling and Engagement Teams, which combine to form what we call the Platform Team.
Our dedicated Scaling Team actively supports portfolio companies with operational guidance. This structure enables startups to bring their technologies to market more effectively, while TDK gains early exposure to transformative innovations.
Empowering innovation through strategic partnerships
TDK Ventures is designed to expand TDK Corporation’s long-term strategy while empowering entrepreneurs to build groundbreaking solutions. Beyond capital investment, we offer what we call “TDK Goodness” — strategic resources, operational support, and market insights that help startups scale effectively.
Our Engagement Team plays a crucial role in facilitating collaborations between TDK Corporation and our portfolio companies. As a CVC, we are uniquely positioned to act as a bridge, ensuring meaningful engagements that drive mutual value. By connecting startups with TDK’s extensive product development, R&D, marketing, and business networks, we help unlock new growth opportunities and accelerate innovation.
The relationship between TDK and TDK Ventures extends across business groups, corporate R&D and marketing, fostering new business potential. In some cases, investments lead to direct collaboration — for instance, Groq’s platform integrates over 51 TDK components, showcasing how our venture partnerships translate into tangible technological advancements.
Reflecting on TDK Ventures’ mission, Noburo Saito, CEO of TDK, emphasizes our role in fostering breakthrough technologies and supporting visionary entrepreneurs: “These next-generation materials represent a new era of progress and will spur further development in electronics and digital transformation across the board.”
Our investments also inform TDK’s broader corporate strategy. By acting as a strategic radar for future trends, TDK Ventures helps identify market gaps and emerging technologies, enabling TDK to adapt, evolve, and contribute to industry transformation. This synergy strengthens our position in key sectors such as Green Transformation (GX) and Digital Transformation (DX), ensuring that our efforts align with the world’s evolving needs.
Enhancing founder experience with NPS
As part of our commitment to building lasting partnerships with entrepreneurs, we continuously seek ways to improve our engagement with startup founders. In the HBR article, “Why VCs Should Use Net Promoter Scores with Founders,” President Nicolas Sauvage highlights TDK Ventures’ position that venture capital firms would benefit adopting a “founder-as-customer” mindset by using Net Promoter Scores (NPS) to gather focused, actionable feedback from their portfolio companies instead of relying on traditional satisfaction surveys. It outlines a four-step process — soliciting feedback, analyzing responses, prioritizing improvements, and communicating changes back — to help VCs enhance their support for founders and drive mutual growth. By implementing this approach, TDK Ventures aims to foster stronger relationships with the entrepreneurs we support, ensuring that we build and provide the most effective resources to help them scale their projects.
Corporate venturing insider: sharing knowledge, building community
Beyond investment, TDK Ventures is committed to knowledge-sharing and collaboration within the CVC ecosystem. Our Corporate Venturing Insider series, launched in July 2020, has become a platform for fostering conversations among over 100 CVC and VC leaders, entrepreneurs, and academics. Through these discussions, we explore key themes such as:
· Driving value to entrepreneurs: How CVCs operating like VC firms build the needed reputation and credibility in the ecosystem
· Driving mothership innovation & long-term strategy: How CVCs fuel corporate innovation respecting and supporting the autonomy of the startups they engage with.
· Scalability & synergy: Navigating the challenges of corporate alignment and startup flexibility. (Further reading on this topic in “The Opinionated CVC: A perspective on strategy, process and people.”
As the industry evolves, we believe CVCs must not only adapt and innovate but also leverage collective knowledge from the best practitioners to drive meaningful, long-term success. Corporate Venturing Insider embodies this mission, creating a space where ideas, strategies, and best practices can be shared and learned exchanged openly.
A case study in corporate venturing
TDK Ventures’ journey has been outlined as a business school case study, taught at leading MBA programs including IESE Business School, UC Berkeley, and INSEAD, and accessible to global business schools through HBR. This case study challenges students to navigate the complexities of CVC, exploring real-world questions such as:
· How do you scale a CVC while maintaining entrepreneurial agility?
· How do you deliver on corporate priorities with startup needs?
· What role does leadership play in building a sustainable CVC model?
By analyzing real decisions and challenges faced by TDK Ventures, students gain valuable insights into venture capital, strategic alignment, and corporate innovation.
Continuing the journey
As TDK Ventures continues to grow, we remain committed to learning, adapting, and collaborating with visionary entrepreneurs. We believe that the best way to predict the future is to help build it — and through strategic investments, meaningful partnerships, and a commitment to innovation, we look forward to shaping the next wave of technological breakthroughs.
Visit tdk-ventures.com to view the TDK Ventures introduction deck or follow our developments on LinkedIn.
Further resources
About TDK Ventures
How TDK Ventures started: The Generalist: “TDK Ventures: Innovating from the Inside Out” (from interviews with TDK corporate officers, TDK Ventures team members, entrepreneurs from portfolio companies & investing partners)
· Early CVC learnings — articles by Nicolas Sauvage
· Business school co-authored articles
London Business School: “Entrepreneurship: A superhero’s journey”
