The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company announced a $100 million venture fund.

Goodyear, one of the world’s largest tire companies, plans to advance the future of mobility with a $100 million venture capital fund. The company announced the fund, dubbed Goodyear Ventures, at Las Vegas, where it was participating in the 2020 Consumer Electronics Show.

The new corporate venture fund will invest “in startups with a shared vision of sustainable, safe, and new mobility experiences that make life’s connections easier every day,” the company said in a statement.

The fund will deploy its investments over the next decade.

Goodyear’s focus on mobility themes

The venture fund will look to invest in ventures that embrace the following themes:

• Electric and autonomous technologies
• Connected mobility solutions
• Next-generation public mobility
• Next-generation aviation mobility
• Future transportation infrastructure
• Future maintenance and operations
• Emerging technologies
• New tire materials

Goodyear’s thesis for investing in startups

Chris Helsel, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.’s senior vice president and chief technology officer said to Crain’s Cleveland Business in April 2019 on the subject of disruption:

“Shouldn’t we instead be talking about how the traditional and the startup can work together for a better future?” he asked. “Instead of ‘out with the old and in with the new,’ what if we focused on disruption in the form of disruptive collaboration?”

Enter, startups.

Small, agile, innovative companies that are the perfect complement to Goodyear’s size, experience, and resources.

“If we find common ground where we can work on joint projects, we disrupt together, rather than each other,” Helsel said in the interview.

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