Japan’s NTT DoCoMo today announced that it will be launching a 10 billion yen ($109 million) venture fund and a related operating company in late February accelerating development of new businesses for smartphones and tablets. Along with this, the company is also in the line-up to launch an incubation program to support start-ups and venture companies on February 7, leading to which it would be investing in 500 Startups II.
The company is working towards accelerating development of business models, services and technologies in eight new strategic fields: media/content, finance/payments, commerce, medical/healthcare, machine-to-machine (M2M), aggregation/platforms, environment/ecology and security/safety.
The investments in Startups and venture companies which will be selected for the program will be provided various resources and know-how, including up to 2 million yen ($23,000) seed funding which can be use of office space, other infrastructure conducive to business development, and mentoring on management and development.