Komatsu Ltd. (President: Tetsuji Ohashi) (hereinafter 'Komatsu') has recently made equity participation in Skycatch Inc. (CEO: Mr. Christian Sanz) (hereinafter 'Skycatch').

Komatsu is driving growth strategies based on innovation, one of the basic strategies of the ongoing mid-range management plan ending March 31, 2016. Specifically, Komatsu is working to make innovation, i.e to create new value, on customers' jobsites. The equity participation in Skycatch is comparable to that made in ZMP Inc. in February this year. Komatsu is going to accelerate the pace of its growth by further strengthening collaboration with start-ups which possess state-of-the-art technologies.

Skycatch leads in cutting edge technologies of surveying and analyzing site conditions of jobsites within the construction and mining industries. To date, Skycatch has achieved great success and boasts a strong track record of accomplishments at construction and mining sites in the United States through the deployment of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs; commonly known as drones).

Komatsu launched the SMARTCONSTRUCTION business in Japan in February this year. This is a solutions business in which Komatsu connects all information of construction jobsites via ICT and achieves safe and high-productivity jobsites of the future. One of the core components of SMARTCONSTRUCTION is survey of site conditions. Skycatch's UAV-deployed site survey has proven to be a highly valuable solution for our customers due to the incredibly fast delivery of such high-precision data. Komatsu is planning to continue to develop new solutions in collaboration with Skycatch.

Komatsu expects minimal impact on its consolidated business results from this equity participation.

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