GM Ventures Aims to Ensure Parent’s Future By Investing in the Best Automotive Startups: Q&A With President Jon Lauckner

In early July, General Motors announced the creation of its own venture capital arm, General Motors Ventures. The $100 million fund was set up, GM said, to identify and help develop and bring to market innovative automotive technologies. To date, the fund has made just two investments, but more are on the way (read on).

To run the fund, the automaker tapped GM insider Jon Lauckner. The new president of GM Ventures is not a veteran venture capitalist at all—but he does know the automotive world, including GM’s strategic needs around technology. Lauckner joined GM in 1979 and has risen to hold a suite of leadership positions that include VP of Global Program Management and VP of General Motors Global Product Planning. According to his bio, Laucknerba also serves as a member of GM’s Senior Leadership Group and had a hand in developing the Chevrolet Volt electric vehicle.

Now that Lauckner is almost six months into his new role, I reached out to him to check on the motives behind the fund, how it is going so far, and what Lauckner sees as keys to—and milestones for—future success.

Our brief e-mail conversation follows:

Xconomy: What motivated or inspired the formation of GM Ventures? What needs are you trying to meet?

GM Ventures, LLC. President Jon LaucknerJon Lauckner: Establishing GM Ventures as a new subsidiary is a new way of doing business at GM to accelerate the introduction of innovative technology to support our core automotive business. So, our mission is to support GM’s vision to design, build, and sell the world’s best vehicles by investing in automotive-related startups to ensure that GM vehicles have the best technology available.

X: What is your investment philosophy–types of ventures you want to fund, the time horizon you are looking at, industries, how you syndicate deals, and so on?

JL: We are interested in technologies in the areas of automotive cleantech, “infotainment,” advanced materials and other automotive-related technologies that can be introduced in our future vehicles in a 3-5-year time horizon. As a strategic investor, our investment philosophy is

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Author: Robert Buderi

Bob is Xconomy's founder and chairman. He is one of the country's foremost journalists covering business and technology. As a noted author and magazine editor, he is a sought-after commentator on innovation and global competitiveness. Before taking his most recent position as a research fellow in MIT's Center for International Studies, Bob served as Editor in Chief of MIT's Technology Review, then a 10-times-a-year publication with a circulation of 315,000. Bob led the magazine to numerous editorial and design awards and oversaw its expansion into three foreign editions, electronic newsletters, and highly successful conferences. As BusinessWeek's technology editor, he shared in the 1992 National Magazine Award for The Quality Imperative. Bob is the author of four books about technology and innovation. Naval Innovation for the 21st Century (2013) is a post-Cold War account of the Office of Naval Research. Guanxi (2006) focuses on Microsoft's Beijing research lab as a metaphor for global competitiveness. Engines of Tomorrow (2000) describes the evolution of corporate research. The Invention That Changed the World (1996) covered a secret lab at MIT during WWII. Bob served on the Council on Competitiveness-sponsored National Innovation Initiative and is an advisor to the Draper Prize Nominating Committee. He has been a regular guest of CNBC's Strategy Session and has spoken about innovation at many venues, including the Business Council, Amazon, eBay, Google, IBM, and Microsoft.