BMW i Ventures Closes $300M Fund III to Back AI Across the Automotive Ecosystem

By Marcus Behrendt and Kasper Sage

We are proud to announce BMW i Ventures Fund III, a new $300 million fund dedicated to backing the companies building at the intersection of artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing, and the evolving automotive ecosystem. With this new capital, BMW i Ventures’ total capital under management now exceeds $1.1 billion.

Five years ago, when we transitioned into the managing partner roles at the close of Fund II, we set out to build something that was genuinely different: a venture fund with the financial discipline to compete in Silicon Valley and the access to help founders move faster than they ever could alone. With Fund II, we doubled down on sustainability, supply chain, and the emerging AI companies we believed would reshape automotive. Today, with the close of Fund III, we’re proud of what this team has built - and even more excited about the road ahead.

This is a milestone we’re genuinely proud of, and one that reflects 15 years of conviction: the technologies that will shape the future of the automotive ecosystem are increasingly developed by startups, particularly in Artificial Intelligence. They’ll come from founders who see a problem clearly, build without constraints, and move fast. Our job is to find them early, back them with real conviction, and help them win.

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Why Fund III, Why Now

Each fund has reflected our belief about where the industry is headed. Fund I was built around autonomous and digital automotive technologies. Fund II doubled down on sustainability, supply chain resilience, and AI — areas we were convinced would define the next era of industry.

With Fund III, we’re making our biggest bet yet on AI. Not AI as a theme or a headline, but as a genuine step-function change in what the automotive industry can build, how fast it can move, and what becomes possible in manufacturing, engineering, and autonomy.

We’ve been investing in AI companies for years. But we are now in a different moment in time. The models are capable enough. The tools are mature enough. And the founders building on top of them are creating entire new categories of companies - companies that can deliver outsized impact across the automotive value chain in ways that simply wasn’t feasible before.

Our Fund III will focus on a few key areas:

Physical AI and Agentic AI. We are focused on AI that acts in the real world, autonomous systems, robotics, and AI-driven production workflows. AI that operates with genuine agency, making decisions and executing tasks without constant human supervision. These categories are still early, but we are convinced the best companies being built today will define the next decade of industrial technology.

Manufacturing and supply chain. The automotive supply chain is among the most complex in the world and ripe for transformation. Startups bringing AI-powered intelligence to manufacturing processes, production planning, and supply chain optimization have an enormous opportunity ahead of them, and BMW i Ventures has the access and expertise to identify and support the best of them.

Circularity and advanced materials. This remains a core pillar, consistent with BMW Group’s long-term sustainability commitments and our own investment conviction since Fund II. Circularity is about economic independence from raw materials, reducing exposure to constrained or geopolitically sensitive supply chains, and engineering vehicles and components that can be meaningfully recycled and reused. Fund III will also back next-generation materials innovations that combine performance improvements with more efficient resource use. AI dramatically expands the toolkit here; it doesn’t replace the underlying imperative.

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A Track Record We’re Proud Of

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Across more than 90 investments over three funds, BMW i Ventures has backed companies from Seed through Series B in North America and Europe. Fund II has made 35 investments. We have seen more than 30 exits, including 11 public companies, and Fund I has already returned significant capital, performing in the top quartile.

These results didn’t happen by accident. They came from backing outstanding founders developing technology that genuinely mattered to the industry, and where the business was built to win on its own merits.

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What Makes BMW i Ventures Different

BMW i Ventures occupies a position no purely financial VC can replicate. We combine venture discipline, financial rigor, investment independence, competitive execution speed with deep access to one of the world’s most successful automotive organizations with strong engineering talent and heritage.

For founders, this means real access: domain experts across BMW Group, direct pathways to commercial partnerships, and the potential to engage with one of the world’s leading automakers as a customer or development partner. We’ve seen portfolio companies use this access to validate technology in production environments, accelerate product roadmaps, and open commercial relationships that would have taken years to build independently.

Skylo is bringing satellite-connected vehicle services to market with BMW Group being  a strategic partner. Tekion is building the AI-native platform modernizing automotive retail, now at Series D and a clear category leader. Rive is transforming how in-vehicle user interfaces are designed and animated, with BMW as both investor and collaborator. And GaN Systems, which we backed in 2017, became the first GaN power transistor to reach automotive qualification before being acquired by Infineon for $830 million - a great example of financial return and strategic impact arriving together.

What we offer isn’t just introductions or advisory. It’s real commercial pathways, built into how we operate. At the same time, the fund operates with genuine independence. Investment decisions are made by the BMW i Ventures investment team. We move at venture speed. Portfolio companies don’t become captive to a corporate roadmap; they become stronger businesses because of the access and expertise we bring.

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What the Two Previous Funds Have Taught Us

Every fund reflects lessons from the ones that came before. A few things we carry into Fund III with real conviction:

There is no strategic impact without financial success. Portfolio companies need to become durable, category-leading businesses to deliver lasting value - to their customers, their investors, and to the industry. We back companies built to win financially. The strategic impact follows from that.

Follow-on reserves are not a nice-to-have. Doubling down on your best companies when you have high conviction is often the most important decision a fund can make. Fund III is structured to do that.

The best investments require a long view. Some of the technologies that will matter most to automotive over the next decade don’t map to today’s operational priorities. BMW i Ventures exists to invest ahead of those curves, to give BMW and the broader industry visibility into what’s coming before it’s obvious.

We are deeply grateful to all the founders, advisors, and ecosystem partners who have made this journey possible, and especially to BMW Group, whose continued support and belief in what we are building have made three funds a reality. None of this happens without the trust they’ve placed in us, and we don’t take that lightly.

The automotive industry is undergoing a transformation that will take years to fully play out. We believe the most important companies shaping that transformation are being built right now. We’re honored to be in a position to find them, back them, and help them succeed.

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