In May 2015, Airbus Group, the European aerospace and defense giant, announced a $150 million corporate venture capital fund, along with a new business innovation center in Silicon Valley.
The business innovation center is now open in downtown San Jose and Airbus Ventures, which sits on Menlo Park’s Sand Hill Road next to some of Silicon Valley’s top venture capital firms, will announce its first investment – in Local Motors Inc., a VegasTechFund-backed company that uses digital manufacturing techniques to create appliances and vehicles designed by a crowd.
Local Motors co-founder and Chief Executive Jay Rogers says Local Motors is already changing how cars and appliances are made. He expects to be able to do the same for the aerospace industry, creating vehicles that are safer, more sustainable and produced far more rapidly and cheaply than the current ones.
Read more about this announcement from The Wall Street Journal in “Airbus Ventures Invests in Local Motors to Shake Up Aerospace Industry.“
