Toyota’s Woven Capital: New Minds Engineering Mobility’s Tomorrow

Periodically, Michiko Kato reflects on the significant hurdles of her existence.

She once abandoned all in her hometown, Tokyo, to pursue studies at Harvard Business School in Massachusetts. At a later point, she chose to depart from her secure realm in finance, venturing into the unstable landscape of startup life. That pivotal transition transformed her entire path.

This Wednesday, Kato formally undertakes her most significant endeavor to date — serving as CIO of Toyota’s Woven Capital and CEO of Toyota Invention Partners. This latter designation establishes her as the inaugural female CEO of an entirely owned Toyota division.

Woven Capital operates as Toyota’s expanding-phase venture investment division, primarily centered on supporting entrepreneurs developing solutions in mobility (spanning aerospace, cyber-protection, and self-driving technologies). In August of the previous year, it disclosed an $800 million Fund II (following Fund I, also valued at $800 million, which commenced in 2021), with aims to support a minimum of 20 new Series B investments. Its current holdings feature firms such as the satellite enterprise Xona and the defense production infrastructure company Machina Labs.

The enterprise endeavors to identify the “upcoming pioneers of mobility,” she stated, and intends to select companies that will function as “cooperative associates with Toyota.”

“We are capable of jointly directing, providing modest capital injections, or undertaking substantial capital deployment; we strive for adaptability,” she affirmed. Regarding her personal approach? “I intend to be actively involved. I aspire to be beneficial for nascent companies. Moreover, I wish to genuinely concentrate on fostering alliances.”

This week, Kato is accompanied in her advancement at the firm. Mia Panzer is also transitioning from her corporate strategy position at one of Toyota’s tech divisions to assume the role of COO of Woven Capital. This implies that not merely one, but two of the key positions at this corporate VC (CVC) firm will be occupied by women, serving as an indicator of how the traditionally male-dominated sphere of finance and investments is evolving.

In the past, women have fared (marginally) superior in advancing within CVCs compared to conventional investment companies. However, the most recent definitive statistics originated from a 2014 CBI report, which stated that just under 20% of leading CVCs comprised female members on their investing teams. This figure was equated, at that juncture, to the reality that merely 7% of partners at the top 100 venture firms were women.

Presently, within the venture capital sector, that figure approximates 15.4%, indicating that the proportion of women in investment capacities at CVCs has also risen.

Kato became part of the firm in 2020, as one of the initially recruited personnel for what was then the recently established Woven Capital. (It had separated from an internal division of Toyota.)

She has accumulated 15 years of experience in investing overall, encompassing work with the M&A group at Unison Capital and as finance chief for the Japanese artificial intelligence nascent company ABEJA. Since becoming part of Woven, she has spearheaded six investments (including an unrevealed one) into emerging companies such as the reusable launch vehicle company Stoke and the self-driving vehicle enterprise Nuro, which marked her inaugural investment. She expresses the most enthusiasm for air mobility, tangible AI, and equipment. “I believe we possess the capability to radically alter how production is executed,” she remarked regarding her outlook for the CVC.

Collaborating with her will be Panzer, in the recently established COO role. She will assume responsibility for finance, operations, human resources, and judicial strategy. She mentioned that two constant concerns for every CVC are a business downturn that halts transactions and a discrepancy with the parent company. “My core responsibility is to essentially aid in navigating this process,” she stated.

She has been collaborating alongside Ro Gupta, Woven Capital’s executive director, since his period of establishing the mapping enterprise Camera in 2019. She became part of that nascent company while three months expecting her first child, to manage finances. Prior to this, she was employed at Goldman and subsequently at the animal well-being firm Independent Pet Partners (IPP). She mentioned she wasn’t genuinely seeking to depart from her role at IPP but chose to afford Gupta and Camera an opportunity.

“I genuinely enjoy being involved in the nascent business sector,” she expressed.

Toyota’s technology division subsequently acquired Carmera (a transaction she assisted in arranging), and Gupta and Panzer became members of that section. In December 2025, he assumed the role of executive director of Woven Capital and opted to include Panzer. Both Kato and Panzer answer to Gupta.

Initially, Panzer did not believe she was entirely competent, but then she reflected on how women routinely declare themselves insufficiently prepared for a role, whereas men simply engage and proceed. She recalled a professional path replete with presumptions about her, ranging from the university recruiter who doubted her technical expertise due to her gender, to the colleague at Goldman who informed her she was not his rival for advancement because she was a woman.

She opted to simply dive in as well.

“We frequently discuss the Japanese notion of ikigai, where one concentrates on endeavoring to discover something they are proficient in, what they are passionate about, what society requires, and what they can be compensated for,” she stated, further remarking that it feels complete as successive generations of her family have engaged in the automotive components industry. “I consistently advise other women, ‘Permit them to underestimate you,’ she remarked. ‘It’s simple to exceed expectations.’”