Home Depot Ventures is a $150 million venture fund.

The Home Depot (NYSE: HD) announced the launch of Home Depot Ventures, a $150 million venture fund that will accelerate the development of home improvement technologies and enhance the customer experience at the home improvement retail chain. (The Home Depot)

Home Depot’s new venture arm

The new venture fund will invest in businesses and early startups that “solve challenges for The Home Depot’s customers and show potential to scale.”

The focus areas could include platform innovation, delivery optimization, asset and network optimization, and the application of data science.

The Home Depot has already built up a record of successfully backing startups. These include:

• Afero, a secure, end-to-end Internet of Things (IoT) platform to provide smart capabilities for products in virtually any industry;
• Loadsmart, a freight technology company designed to help shippers and carriers price, book and move freight more efficiently;
• Made Renovation, an end-to-end digital platform for bathroom renovations; and
• Roadie, a crowdsourced delivery platform that was acquired by UPS in 2021

“With Home Depot Ventures we’re lending our support and expertise to enable rapid scale of innovation,” said Richard McPhail, executive vice president and chief financial officer of The Home Depot. “This is an exciting opportunity to find and scale the next big ideas in technology and retail.”

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