AgroPages-Sumitomo Corp. announces opening of their Silicon Valley office-Agricultural news

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Sumitomo Corporation (“Sumitomo”) together with Sumitomo Corporation of Americas (“SCOA”) announced their plans to open a new SCOA office in Silicon Valley, effective April 1st.

The office will serve as a hub for collaborative development between area venture capital firms (“VC’s”) and SCOA’s many specialties, including automotive, infrastructure, healthcare, food and agriculture, consumer-related, tubular, and many more.

Sumitomo is no stranger to Northern California, having made its first footprint in the U.S. when it opened a representative office in San Francisco back in 1951. Today, Sumitomo Corporation Group’s subsidiary and VC arm, Presidio Ventures, Inc. (“Presidio”) is headquartered in Santa Clara and is one of the longest continuously operating Japanese corporate VC’s in the country, having focused mainly on information and communication technology (ICT) and media investments for nearly 20 years.

Considering evolving technologies such as AI, Big Data and IoT are now bringing innovations to a wide variety of industries, Sumitomo has identified a unique opportunity to translate these innovations across several more of their industry platforms, and ultimately expand these technologies to broader markets. The intention is for this new office to work in lockstep with Presidio, harnessing their decades of expertise and human networks to permeate the VC community within Silicon Valley.

Founded in 1998, Presidio established its headquarters in Silicon Valley to target early-stage ventures of strategic interest. To date, the company has invested in over 150 start-up companies. Presidio mainly targets companies that are at the product prototype stage through the international expansion stage; namely series A, B and C funding.

“We are excited to begin exploring the ground-breaking technology that is coming out of the Valley and applying it to our many varied industries,” stated Tom Wada, who will serve as SCOA’s General Manager for the new office. “By bringing together these new technologies with our deep industry expertise, we believe we are well positioned to expand our businesses for even greater future success.”