Honda Expands Tech Startup Accelerator Program

Honda Motor Co. is expanding its Xcelerator program, which the carmaker started two years ago in California’s Silicon Valley to identify and help fund tech startups, to Detroit, China, Europe and Japan.

The initiative is an open innovation program for early stage innovators. Focus areas are energy and industrial innovation, human-machine interface, personal mobility, autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence, smart materials and robotics.

Under the program, Honda provides select startups with funding for rapid prototyping. Participants also are paired with Honda mentors and are provided access to collaborative workspaces.

Honda says the program helps it keep tabs on emerging technologies and form early partnerships with leading-edge innovators. Two of the carmaker’s first California Xcelerator partners are LEIA 3D and VocalZoom.

Working with LEIA, Honda developed a driver display that uses nano technology to provide three-dimensional images and the capability to quickly switch between different viewing angles for warnings and driver-assist systems. Honda collaborated with VocalZoom to apply optical microphone technology to improve voice-activation operations.

Honda also is partnering with incubators MassChallenge (Boston) and two Israeli groups—Drive (Tel Aviv) and equity crowd-funding platform OurCrowd (Jerusalem)—to support startups in other global innovation hubs. The carmaker will introduce its latest startup collaborations in January at the CES electronics show in Las Vegas.