KDDI Open Innovation Fund III Makes Additional Investment in Turing Inc., Developer of Fully Autonomous Vehicles

April 26, 2024

KDDI CORPORATION

On April 26, 2024, KDDI invested in Turing Inc. (Headquarters: Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo; CEO: Issei Yamamoto; hereinafter "Turing"), which is engaged in the development of fully autonomous vehicles, through KDDI Open Innovation Fund III (operated by Global Brain Corporation; hereinafter "KOIF III"), which aims to incubate new business co-creations with promising venture startups. Furthermore, this represents KDDI's second investment in Turing, following the seed round (investment by KOIF III).

Turing is a startup company engaged in the development of end-to-end (E2E) self-driving technology, in which all necessary driving decisions, such as those for steering, braking, and accelerating, are made by AI using only data obtained from cameras.
By utilizing "Heron," which is Turing's proprietary multimodal generative AI model, the company aims to build a system that can ethically respond to situations even when they do not exist in driving data, and achieve Level 5 fully autonomous driving.

Through this investment, KDDI will support the promotion of Turing's fully autonomous self-driving vehicles both in Japan and internationally by providing its knowledge of connected services cultivated through KDDI's Global Communications Platform, and by providing 5G and other communications assets in the area of remote monitoring of self-driving vehicles.

As "the company that customers feel closest to," KDDI will continue to promote business co-creation through investment in promising startup companies, and create new business models together with customers and partners.

MUGENLABO Magazine
Development and Sales of Self-Driving Vehicles - TURING (in Japanese only)

(Reference)

• ■Overview of Turing Inc.

  • (1)

    • Company name

      : Turing Inc.

  • (2)

    • Headquarters

      : Gate City Ohsaki, East Tower, 4th Floor, 1-11-2 Ohsaki, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo

  • (3)

    • Date founded

      : August 2021

  • (4)

    • Business activities

      : Development of fully autonomous vehicles

  • (5)

    • CEO

      : Issei Yamamoto

  • (6)

    • URL

      : https://tur.ing/en

• ■About KDDI Open Innovation Fund

  KDDI Open Innovation Fund is a corporate venture fund that supports a broad range of venture companies. The currently active KDDI Open Innovation Fund III focuses on the areas of AI, IoT, data marketing, fintech, B2B SaaS, and entertainment with a total operating fund of 30 billion yen.