SBI Investment, a wholly owned subsidiary of SBI Holdings has announced a new AI & Blockchain Fund to invest in promising venture companies in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain.

This follows FinTech Fund set up by the company in 2015. SBI Investment said that it has been considering to launch SBI AI & Blockchain Fund since last October and decided to start making investments reaching about JPY 20 billion in January 2018 to meet strong requests from the existing FinTech Fund investors, domestic and overseas financial institutions, corporations, and institutional investors.

“While new technologies such as AI and blockchain are attracting global attention in the financial sector, they are also expected to be used in various other sectors, such as the medical, real estate and public sectors,” the official release said. “As a result, SBI Investment has decided to set up the Fund as a successor to the FinTech Fund, striving to make investments in promising venture companies conducting a broad range of AI and blockchain businesses, including that of FinTech companies along with IoT, robotics and the sharing economy, which are closely related to AI and blockchain technologies.”

The Fund will support open innovation between investors and investee companies, increase the value of investee companies, and actively help investors implement and use new technologies. The objective is to help to help investee companies and investors enhance their services and eventually contribute to the growth and development of new industries.

SBI Investment said that it plans to solicit additional investments from regional financial institutions and institutional investors, and to increase the fund size to the JPY 50 billion level as soon as possible.