The $62m fund is DIC’s first expansion into Europe and builds on a strategic pivot from investing in biomaterials to a focus on physical AI.
DIC Corporation, the Japanese chemicals company, has created a new Zurich-based investment arm, DIC D2S Ventures AG, to step up its push into so‑called “physical AI” — technologies that use cameras and sensors to perceive and act in the physical world — and to accelerate new business creation in Europe and North America.
The subsidiary, established in March 2026 as part of a strategic partnership with Emerald Technology Ventures, has a $62m fund earmarked for investment in early-stage deep tech startups in areas such as robotics, wearables, sensing and industrial automation.
“Our mission is not simply financial investment, we focus on strategic investment and business creation by combining startup innovation with DIC material science capabilities,” said Ikuro Kiyoto, group manager of the DIC corporate venture team.
Zurich was chosen as the firm’s European base because, as Kiyoto put it, “Zurich has one of the strongest deep tech ecosystems globally, there is a strong concentration of robotics, AI industry, automation, and universities like ETH and startups and investors.”
The new fund also marks a strategic pivot away from biomaterials, where DIC has made five startup investments since establishing its CVC unit in 2016. Experience in that sector has informed the company’s new thesis.
“We learned the commercialisation cycles of biomaterials were often very long and scaling challenge was significant,” said Kiyoto.
By contrast, he says, “we realized that physical AI had much stronger alignment with our material technologies and industrial applications and future growth potential, so… we shifted… our focus area from biomaterial to physical AI.”
DIC, which is a leading manufacturer of printer inks, organic pigments and synthetic resins, is now actively seeking startups that can provide device and system-level solutions and need help at the material and interface layer — particularly in areas such as tactile sensing for robots.
As part of its European push, DIC plans to send corporate venture team members to Zurich from the next quarter and will host an event on collaborative innovation in the physical AI domain in the city on 10 July 2026, bringing together startups, VCs and research institutions to explore partnership and investment opportunities.
DIC is the latest in a series of Japanese corporate venture units that have expanded operations in Europe. According to Jetro, the trade organisation, there were more than 60 Japanese corporations with technology scouting operations in Europe in 2025. Last month Ricoh, the workplace technologies company, launched a new venture fund with an explicit mandate to increase overseas investing, including in Europe. Online retailer Japanet, meanwhile, quadrupled the size of its CVC fund to $200m, with investing in Europe — also in areas like physical AI — part of the plan.
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