Founder & General Partner at Toyota Ventures · Joined 2017
View Live Interactive Profile →Jim Adler brought a genuinely unusual mix of entrepreneurial, privacy, and data engineering experience to Toyota when he joined Toyota Research Institute in 2016, having previously founded VoteHere, a cryptographic online voting startup funded by Cisco and HP, and held VP roles at Metanautix (acquired by Microsoft) and Intelius (acquired by H.I.G. Capital). What began as work training Toyota's AI systems on driving data turned into a pitch for a dedicated venture fund, and in July 2017 he became founding managing director of Toyota AI Ventures. He's structured the firm from day one around founders as the primary customer rather than Toyota itself - an intentional choice, he's said, to keep the firm credible with entrepreneurs rather than behaving like a typical strategic investor. Under his leadership Toyota Ventures rebranded in 2021, expanded into climate and frontier technology, and grew assets under management past $800 million by 2024.