Z Venture Capital (ZVC) has made an additional investment in the Series A round (1st Close) of Turing Inc., a company developing fully autonomous driving technology.

Globally, the race to bring autonomous driving into real-world use is accelerating at an incredible pace.

During a recent trip to San Francisco, I rode in a fully driverless car myself. Experiencing a vehicle navigate urban streets without a human touching the wheel was a powerful reminder of how far the technology has progressed—and it reinforced for me how important it is to bring this future to Japan as well.

In Japan, *Level 4 autonomous driving trials are underway, but achieving the kind of autonomy already seen in the U.S. still faces technological and regulatory hurdles. And compared to global players with massive resources—data, talent, and compute—Japanese autonomous driving technology is still playing catch-up.

*Level 4: Under certain conditions, the system handles all driving tasks, with no human involvement.

Turing is one of the few companies building fully autonomous driving AI from Japan.

The team is developing an end-to-end autonomous driving AI that handles perception, route planning, and control through a single system, alongside a large-scale foundation model that learns human norms, context, and social reasoning. By combining these two approaches, Turing aims to enable vehicles to drive entirely on their own, in any environment.

ZVC made its first investment in July 2024, and since then Turing has made meaningful progress across the board—from team and technology to collaborations with multiple OEMs. The company has also been selected three consecutive times for “GENIAC,” a program led by Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and NEDO, highlighting its position as a leading force in Japan’s autonomous driving ecosystem.

Seeing Turing’s momentum up close gave us strong conviction in making this follow-on investment.

When we first backed the company, I wrote that “Turing is capable of creating a world where anyone—regardless of driving skill or experience—can ride in a car with complete peace of mind.” That belief is now even stronger.

ZVC will continue to support Turing with full commitment as they work to make fully autonomous driving a reality from Japan.

(References)

*¹ Turing Selected for the 3rd Term of Domestic Generative AI Development Project "GENIAC" (July 15, 2025)

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