Jerusalem-based OurCrowd global venture investing platform has entered a new business and technology scouting partnership with Toyota Tsusho trading company of Japan, one of 17 companies in the Toyota Group.

OurCrowd will act as a technology scout and source innovation and investments in Israel and worldwide for Toyota Tsusho, which seeks innovative products and services for mobility, smart cities, med-tech, environmental technologies, and big data in agriculture.

A major focus of the scouting agreement is next-generation startups in the areas of autonomous driving. This encompasses technologies such as image recognition, data compression and security.

“The future belongs to the bold who are implementing game changing technologies. Toyota Tsusho and its 58,000 employees all over the world are proud to be leaders in our focus industries, but to ensure our future leadership we must identify, invest and work with startups who are changing the world we live in,” commented Minoru Murata,executive vice president, regional CEO and CTO of Toyota Tsusho.

“Our partnership with OurCrowd will bring us these key technologies and leaders to work together on the next generation of global challenges.”

Jon Medved, founder and CEO of OurCrowd, noted that Toyota Tsusho has been in business for 70 years and is “focused on solving real global problems. Together we can help startups turn into ‘scaleups’ by providing access to Toyota Tsusho’s unrivaled platform that can deploy new technologies and products quickly and effectively in over 120 markets around the world.”

OurCrowd has raised over $1.28 billion in funding commitments and has made investments in 200 diversified companies and funds.