Interview: Sebastian Peck, Managing Director, InMotion Ventures

Whilst highly accomplished in the art of vehicle manufacturing, it has become evident that incumbent OEMs deem it necessary to draw on outside expertise to succeed in comparatively foreign areas of autonomous driving software, shared mobility and new propulsion systems.

One way to gain a better understanding of these areas is to set up a corporate venture capital arm; not only does this technically independent firm have a strong link to the start-up ecosystem, but will also typically have direct access to the OEM’s board of management. While not all investments made by the corporate VC will be made with M&A in mind, the OEM is far better placed to put in an offer if the start-up is deemed valuable enough.

InMotion Ventures – which describes itself as being ‘powered’ by parent company Jaguar Land Rover – was originally set up with an eye to getting on the