Tank Talk: Anil Achyuta (Investment Director @ TDK Ventures) - Investing in Frontier Tech at a CVC

On today's Talk, we ask Anil about his journey starting out as a research scientist at global institutions like Draper Labs & Johnson & Johnson in Boston. We dig into Anil's role as head of the “brain on a chip” project funded by DARPA and MIT to study brain diseases. Next we dig into his time as head of external innovation at L’Oreal and the challenges he faced while looking at over 200 startups without making one venture investment.

Next, we ask Anil about his journey to TDK Ventures and his role as investment director at the 85 year-old Japanese multinational electronics company. We discuss his focus on investing globally in frontier technology startups in areas ranging from Health & Diagnostics, to next Gen Transportation like flying cars and even Robotics, IoT devices and Material Sciences.

We ask Anil how TDK Ventures balances investing in frontier tech that may one day replace TDK Corporate products as competitors vs. supporting TDK’s ability to adapt and grow. Finally, we ask Anil how he overcomes founders' concerns of partnering with a corporate investor whose goals may be misaligned. This Tank Talk really makes you appreciate the challenges corporate venture funds face internally while competing against traditional investors while at the same time taking big bets on investing in frontier technologies that may not pan out for decades while still supporting the short term goals of its parent company.

Books Mentioned In The Show:

-Great Feuds in Mathematics

- Big Bang : The Origin of the Universe by Simon Singh

- Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawkings

- Science of everything: How things work in our world

Anil’s words of inspiration - “If people are not laughing at your goals, your goals are too small” by Azim Premji, Wipro Chairman

Follow Matt Cohen and Tank Talks here!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tanktalks.substack.com