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Tim Romero

Disrupting Japan gives you candid, in-depth insights from the startup founders, VCs, and leaders who are reshaping Japan.

Disrupting Japan: Startups and Innovation in Japan

In the popular imagination, Japan is almost synonymous with robots.

While Japan once dominated cutting-edge robotics, over the past decade she has fallen further and further behind the US and China.

Today we sit down with Chiamin Lai of Firstlight Capital, who believes that Japan might just regain that leadership. We talk about the unique opportunity and advantage Japan has in the deployment of practical physical AI, the enterprise culture that is holding it back, and what a handful of innovators are doing about it today.

It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it.

Show Notes

 
How starting startups in Japan has changed over the past 20 years -- especially for foreigners
 How Japan's labor shortage is driving the adoption of physical AI
 The biggest problem in integrating GenAI and robotics
 The best use cases for physical AI today and why healthcare is not one of them
 How secrecy is holding back AI innovation
 What keeps Japanese enterprise from embracing open innovation
 Can Japan's VC ecosystem afford to fund AI in the era of massive funding rounds
 Why physical AI companies should not create their own hardware
 Why Japanese startups should not look to hardware for competitive advantage
 The importance of industry cooperation and why it's critical for Japan's AI success
 What physical AI will look like in Japan in five years

Links from the Founder

 Everything you ever wanted to know about Firstlight Capital
 Firstlight's thesis on Physical AI
 Connect with Chiamin on LinkedIn
 Follow her on Twitter @chiamin_lai
 Chiamin's excellent series on Physical AI in Japan

Leave a comment

Transcript
Welcome to Disrupting Japan, Straight Talk from Japan's most innovative founders and VCs.
I'm Tim Romero and thanks for joining me.
Japan has always had a special and very positive relationship with robots from Astro Boy and Doraemon in the fifties and sixties, to Sony's Asimo in the 2000s to SoftBanks Pepper in the 2010s. It has always felt like Japan was set to create and then to lead a humanoid robot revolution.

But that didn't happen.

In fact, today, Japan seems to be far behind both China and the US in the development of not just humanoid robots, but intelligent robots in general.

Well, today we sit down with Chiamin Lai partner at Firstlight Capital, to discuss how that came to be and what we can do about it. Now, Chiamin's investment interests are deeply focused on physical AI and specifically physical AI startups in Japan. And she remains optimistic about the future of AI and robotics in Japan.

We talk about the market and the financial structures pushing Japan to adopt meaningful physical AI before the rest of the world. The technology and social challenges of trying to use AI and robotics and healthcare, and some really great advice for physical AI startups that are planning to raise money.

But, you know, Chiamin tells that story much better than I can. So, let's get right to the interview.
Interview
Tim: So, we're sitting here with Chiamin Lai, the general partner at Firstlight Capital, and a director at Japan Venture Capital Association. So, thanks for sitting down with me.

Chiamin: Thank you, Tim.

Tim: Before joining Firstlight, you worked in startups and investing in Japan and in China and in the US but you've had ties to Japan for quite a while, haven't you?

Chiamin: Yeah, I was born Taiwan, but then I came here when I was teenager, and after that I received education here. I also work in Japan, but then later to Europe and then came back. So I can say this is like my hometown in the way. I have more friends, more connection, and my family here. So yeah, some of my friends said, you are more Japanese than we are. Sometimes I agree.

Tim: Yeah, I know the feeling. I've been here over 30 years myself. Yeah, it kind of sneaks up on you. And Japan is a very comfortable place to live once you kind of get used to it...

Will Japan ever regain its lead in robotics?

Japanese startups is hot right now, and more and more foreign money is flowing in.

But many Japanese VCs remain stubbornly outward-looking.

Today we sit down with Shri Dodani, who after a series of highly successful American startups, decided that Japan is the best place to invest right now, and co-founded of Global Hands-On VC, to make those investments.

We talk about the unique advantages startups have in Japan and why Japanese founders often have trouble leveraging those advantages.

It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it.

Show Notes

 
The unique potential Shri first saw in the Japanese market
 How Japanese buying patterns help Japanese startups
 Japan's transition from VC 1.0 to VC 2.0
 Are Japanese startups really becoming more globally minded?
 Why the large global VCs seem to have so little interest in Japan
 How Japanese VCs and corporates are more supportive of startups than in other markets
 Why it's important to invest in Japanese founders "with a bit of an attitude”
 What's holding Japanese founders back today
 What actually stops Japanese founders from going global?
 The importance of role models and for Japanese founders to mentor
 The most promising startup sectors in Japan
 How recent immigration tightening will affect innovation in both the US and Japan

Links from the Founder

 Everything you ever wanted to know about GHOVC

 Follow them on Note

 Connect with Shri on LinkedIn

 Check out an interview with him on YouTube

 Follow (GHOVC co-founder) Ken Yasunaga on Twitter @ken_yasunaga

Leave a comment

Transcript
Welcome to Disrupting Japan, Straight Talk from Japan's most innovative founders and VCs.
I'm Tim Romero and thanks for joining me.
Longtime listeners of Disrupting Japan know that I'm extremely bullish about Japanese startups. In fact, most of us on the ground here are pretty optimistic about the whole situation. And yet a surprising number of Japanese LPs and VCs seem to have little interest in investing in Japan preferring to focus on high profile San Francisco.
Today we sit down with Shri Dodani and we look into exactly why that is.
Now Shri is a successful American founder with multiple exits, totaling well over $1.5 billion. And when he transitioned from startup to VC and put his first fund together, he decided to focus exclusively on Japan in order to take advantage of what he thought Japanese and foreign VCs alike were overlooking.
Shri and I talk about Japan's transition from VC 1.0 to VC 2.0, the aspects of the Japanese market that give it a unique advantage over Silicon Valley in some areas, the one thing that's holding Japanese founders back the most and why it's important to invest in founders who have a bit of an attitude.
But, you know, Shri tells that story much better than I can. So, let's get right to the interview.

Interview
Tim: So, I'm sitting here with Shri Ddani of Global Hands-on VC, a serial entrepreneur and founder and managing partner at Global Hands-on VC. So, thanks for sitting down with me.
Shri: Thank you, Tim. It’s an honor.
Tim: I'm glad we've got a chance to talk because I think you really do have a different perspective on what's going on in the Japanese market today. And just to give our listeners a bit of a background, so before moving into VC, you had a remarkable string of successes. As a founder, as an operator, you had six startups and six exits, including one that was a $550 million acquisition and IPO that was worth over a billion. I don't want to dig too much into that because we could be here all day talking about it and it'd be a worthwhile conversation. But after being such a successful operator for so many different types of startups, why the move to VC?
Shri: A good question. So sometime I do one day even after became a VC, that should I continue doing my own companies because I'm good at that. Having done company in different field,

Why so many Japanese VCs won’t invest in Japan

According to Taro, Japan's logistics industry is on the brink of collapse, and it's hard to argue that he's wrong.

Taro Sasaki founded Hacobu with the goal of modernizing Japan's logistics industry. He found few takers for the first few years, and then a new law changed everything.

We talk about how Japan's demographic and economic challenges, why some industries simply refuse to invest in themselves, and how to sell to them anyway.

It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it.

Show Notes

 
Why Japanese logistics is on the brink of collapse
 The factors pushing demand for trucking higher in Japan
 What's preventing Japan's logistics industry from modernizing
 How to sell digital products to skeptical analog industries
 A new Japanese law mandating business efficiency
 How to bootstrap a complex application ecosystem from scratch
 The huge value hiding inside Japanese logistics data
 Hacobu's global expansion plans
 Taro’s best advice to founders wanting to sell into traditional, blue collar industries
 The importance of dreaming big -- even in Japan

Links from the Founder

 Everything you ever wanted to know about Hacobu

 Keep up with the latest on Hacobu [Japanese]
 Hacobu's survey of 1271 Japanese truck drivers [Japanese]

 Friend Taro on Facebook
 Connect with him on LinkedIn
 Follow him on Twitter @tarosasaki

Leave a comment

Transcript
Welcome to Disrupting Japan, Straight Talk from Japan's most innovative founders and VCs.
I'm Tim Romero and thanks for joining me.
Today we are going to talk about how to drive innovation into traditional, conservative, low margin blue collar industries. Now, that might sound hard to do, but it's actually even harder than it sounds. And, you know, that's why so few startups seriously attempt it and why it's extremely profitable for the few founders who manage to get it right.
Today we sit down with Taro Sasaki, the founder of Hacobu, a startup that is finally, finally bringing digital transformation and automation to Japan's logistics industry. Taro’s constant refinement and testing of his ideal customer profile and go to market is a story that all founders can learn a lot from.
Taro and I talk about the best path for founders to take when trying to sell to industries that are resisting digitization, how a lack of regulation can sometimes actually lead to less innovation. Why the logistics market is so hard to crack globally, and the two big factors that led to Hacobu’s sudden change of fortune.
But, you know, Taro tells that story much better than I can. So, let's get right to the interview.

Interview
Tim: So, I am sitting here with Taro Sasaki, the founder of Hacobu, who is reinventing Trucking Logistics in Japan. So thanks for sitting down with us
Taro: Thank you too.
Tim: So, MOVO is a suite of SaaS tools that handle fleet tracking vehicle dispatch loading, unloading. I gave a brief explanation in the intro, but I think you can explain it much better than I can. So, what is MOVO?
Taro: So, Japanese logistics infrastructure is collapsing.
Tim: What do you mean collapsing?
Taro: So, the number of truck drivers is decreasing. The government estimates that in 2030, 25% of truck driver will short to the demand.
Tim: So, what's causing it? It's a lower paying job that younger people just don't want to get into?
Taro: Yeah, yeah. That's one of the reasons. And also the business process in the infra is very outdated and very analog, there are many inefficient things going on. So, the demand for the truck driver is increasing, but actually the supply of the truck driver is decreasing. So, the gap is going to increase.
Tim: That's interesting. So, the demand for trucking is actually increasing recently?
Taro: Yes. Because of the development EC, we want to get things, for example, at the supermarket, we want the commercial goods on demand so that the suppliers have to deliver the products o...

Can startups save Japan’s logistics industry?

Last month I gave lecture at Globis University on what it takes to build an AI startup today.

It's no longer early days for AI, and most founders don't have the connections and resources that drive toady's multi-billion dollar seed rounds. However, as I detail, they still have several paths to success.

After the lecture I am joined on stage for a panel discussion by Reiji Yamanaka, the managing director of the Kibo Impact Investment Fund, and Kelvin Song, the program director of the Globis MBA program.

It's a fascinating discussion, and I think you'll enjoy it.

Leave a comment

 
Transcript
Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan's most innovative founders and VCs.
I'm Tim Romero, and thanks for joining me.
I have a special in-between episode for you today. A few weeks back at Globis University, I gave a lecture to aspiring founders on the best way to start a generative AI startup right now in this time of intense AI competition and funding levels.
I cover the different AI business models, promising application spaces, and how to know if you've got an AI startup idea with a good chance of success.
Now, the first 30 minutes of this episode is the lecture itself, and then I'm joined on stage by Reiji Yamanaka, the managing director of the Kibo Impact Investment Fund, and Kelvin Song, the program director of the Globis MBA program. And we dive even deeper into these ideas and also talk about how generative AI is likely to affect us all.
I hope you enjoy it. So let's get right to the presentation.
 
Presentation
Today we're going to talk about how to build a generative AI startup and some important things to keep in mind if you actually decide to do that. Now, before I tell you what we're going to cover, I want to kind of tell you what we are explicitly not going to cover. So first, we're not going to talk about the transformative nature of AI in general, the explosive growth of the market. There's already way too much chatter about that, and I assume if you're even thinking about starting an AI startup, you already know it. Second, I'm not going to offer general advice about starting and growing a startups, although this is a topic that's very close to my heart. I want to focus on what can add the most value to you in this particular seminar. If you want to talk about general start advice, talk to me later. I'll point you in the right direction or ask questions afterwards or during the panel discussion.
We'll begin today by talking about four common exit and growth strategies. This is a bit unusual. I don't normally recommend that seed or pre-seed companies focus too much on exit strategy, but these are not normal times. With generative AI, you need to plan your end game from the very beginning. We'll spend the bulk of our time talking about actually building your AI startup. We'll cover some key strategic considerations, and also talk about a few of the most promising targets for AI disruption. Does that sound good? Well, before we get to it, why should you listen to me? And that's a totally reasonable question. So, I've been in Japan for, wow, over 30 years now. Currently a partner at Jira Ventures. It's $300 million corporate venture capital firm that invests in green energy, next generation energy, generation technologies. But in my time here, I've started four of my own startups I've sold two, bankrupted two. So, 50 50, not too bad as far as startups go.
I've done a lot of angel investing. I've taught entrepreneurship and corporate innovation at New York University's, Tokyo Campus. I've brought foreign startups into Japan as a country manager. I was tapped by TEPCO to come in and help them spin up TEPCO Ventures. I left TEPCO to run Google for Startups, Japan, swearing I would never go back to energy CVC. After four years at Google, I decided to go back to energy CVC because right now what's happening in energy is just fantastically exciting. Oh,

How to start an AI Startup in late 2025

Japan's declining birth rate makes global headlines, but most of the developed world will soon be facing the same problem.

The real solution involves a lot of social and economic changes, but as you'll see, technology has a huge role to play as well.

Today we sit down and talk with Kaz Kishida, CEO of Dioseve, about how their technology promises to transform IVF, the rapid timeline for global rollout, and safety issues and ethnical questions involved.

It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it.

Show Notes

 
How Dioseve will make IVF far more successful
 Why over 7% of all babies born in Japan are from IVF
 Bio tech CEOs don’t need life science degrees
 Safety concerns
 Applications to rejuvenation and ani-aging
 Ethical questions around this kind of reseach
 Japan’s policies towards stem cell and genetic research
 Roadmap and go-to-market
 Why some babies will have three parents, and what that’s good
 How Dioseve's ovarian cell technology will change IVF
 Why Japan’s bio tech ecosystem remains under-developed
 It's not harder to build a bio tech startup in Japan, but it is different

Links from our Guest

 Everything you ever wanted to know about Dioseve
 Friend Kaz on Facebook

Leave a comment

Transcript
Welcome to Disrupting Japan, Straight Talk from Japan's most innovative founders and VCs.
I'm Tim Romero and thanks for joining me.
Today we're going to talk about making babies.
Now, this is not something that startups or startup podcasts normally weighed into, but as you'll see in this case, it makes a lot of sense.
Today we sit down with Kaz Kishida, co-founder and CEO of Dioseve. And Dioseve has developed a technique for growing mature human eggs from IPS cells. Now, this technology represents a huge step forward for IVF and for human fertility in general.
Some parts of Dioseve’s technology could be in commercial use as soon as next year.
Now, kaz, I dive deep into Dioseve's technology and the potential good it can do and why some future babies will have three parents. We also cover the tricky ethical and safety issues involved, and we explore exactly why that, in spite of all Japan has going for it. The biotech startup ecosystem here is still facing challenges.
But, you know, Kaz, tells that story much better than I can.
So, let's get right to the interview.

Interview
Tim: So, we're sitting here with Kaz Kishida of Dioseve who's helping to address fertility by using stem cells to create fertilizer eggs. So, thanks for sitting down with us.
Kaz: Thank you very much for having me.
Tim: Now I gave a very high level description of what you do in the intro, but can you explain it a little better than I can?
Kaz: Okay. So, our company has technology to induce IPS cells and to another types of cells, including eggs and ovarian cells. Most of their cells are related to germ cells and reproduction.
Tim: Well, this technique's not yet used in fertility treatments. But it's something in the future that holds a lot of potential.
Kaz: Right, right. Currently, like In Vitro fertilization, the success rate is still remarkably low. And sometimes that vitamin journey is tough. But if we can deliver our products, say IPS cell derived ovarian cells, then the IVFs will be more accessible and the success rate will be enhanced so many women and can have their children using our technology.
Tim: So why would the success rate be enhanced from using these eggs produced from stem cells as opposed to eggs harvested from the women directly?
Kaz: So, in the standard protocol of In Vitro fertilization, the first step is to retrieve eggs from women. And then in many cases, those eggs are immature and immature eggs can't be fertilized with sperm. So, we can mature those immature eggs and we can make mature eggs, which can be used for fertilization. So, it directly enhance their success rate of IVF. Let me clarify that. And we have two technologies.

Japanese technology to supercharge human fertility

Last month I spoke on a panel about the future of climate tech.

I was joined by Emi Naganuma, the founder and General Partner of Apprecia Capital and Richard Youngman, the CEO Cleantech Group, with Michael Matsumura of Scrum Ventures moderating.

Right now is both a challenging and an exciting time for climate tech innovatoin.

It's a fascinating discussion, and I think you'll enjoy it.

Leave a comment

 
Transcript
Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan's most innovative founders and VCs.
I'm Tim Romero, and thanks for joining me.
I've got another quick in-between episode for you today. It's a great conversation about deep tech startups and the future of energy.
I was part of a panel discussion organized by Scrum Ventures at the Sakura Deeptech Shibuya Conference. It was moderated by Michael Matsumura of Scrum Ventures, and I was joined on stage by Emi Naganuma, the founder and general partner at Apprecia Capital, and by Richard Youngman, the CEO of the Cleantech Group.
We talk about the best way to raise venture funding as a deep tech startup, how enterprises and startups can better collaborate the important gaps we see in the green tech ecosystem and the somewhat controversial future of using ammonia and hydrogen as alternative fuels.
So, let's get right to the panel.
 
Discussion
Michael: Thank you much for our panelists. Maybe I'll just kick it off. Maybe you could start with Richard. Could you talk a bit about like what you're seeing globally in terms of where the dollars are flowing now? Has that changed like in the last like six months, one year from what you're seeing? From your perspective?
Richard: It hasn't changed radically yet, but it made it. So, I think if you go into Q1, clearly the deals in progress and so forth, some of which may have fallen apart, but some of which happen. I don't think the community in the US judging by our conference the year before was expecting the inflation reduction act to be sort of aggressively taken apart as it was. Meaning if something was already a deal was done and it was expected to continue. And so that's obviously created a lot of back backtrack there. But geographically, I would say we're still to see that. I guess the second comment might be in our 20 years and why really we're excited to be in this part of the world more and more is because we believe that innovation under this theme is coming from everywhere and should come from everywhere and needs to come from everywhere. This is not as Silicon Valley phenomenon. Silicon Valley has a role to play but so does everywhere else. And so I think long term we're expecting to see capital allocation change quite a lot.
Michael: Great. Then maybe staying on that sort of the macro theme maybe I could go to Emi obviously like on a similar topic, but in terms of like your limited partners, like the discussions you're having with your investors, like has there been a change in tone? Is it like in different sectors you guys are interested in or the partners interested in? Could you maybe touch upon a bit about that?
Emi: I think from the expectations from the investors, the LPs into the fund I see that they have shifted their interest into deep tech incredibly especially university or research driven. So, really deep tech and clean tech in terms of geography as well. I think a lot of attention has been in the US but now it, we do see more attention coming into Europe. We see US VCs also emerging into Europe. Before it was series B or series C that they came into. Now, early stage, I think from seed we kind of see some US VCs coming in and trying to getting into the deals. And I also see a shift of students coming in to study in Europe, but yes.
Michael: And in terms of your LPs, are they mostly Japanese or are they a mix of like global LP bases that you have?
Emi: We have Japanese corporates as LPs.
Michael: Thank you. Then maybe Tim, to your perspective, maybe also as JIRA,

What’s next for climate tech startups & innovation

For the last 150 years Japan has made a science of borrowing the best ideas from the West and transforming them into her own.

The startup world is no exception. Japanese startup culture is heavily shaped by western ideas, but not in the traditional top down way where leadership chooses which ideas are introduced. Japan's startup ecosystem is being shaped by bottom-up experimentation by both Japanese and foreign founders on the ground here in Japan.

Today we talk with Sandeep Casi, an entrepreneur and Partner at Antler. We talk about the challenges foreign founders still face in Japan and how they are changing Japanese entrepreneurship for the better.

It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it.

Show Notes

 
How to make money investing in idea-stage startups
 Why Japanese startups are more likely to get funded than their global peers
 Where to find Japanese deep-tech founders
 How foreign founders are changing how Japanese start startups
 The myth that Japanese founders can't speak English
 The one thing making university spinout difficult
 Why professors can't be trusted to evaluate technology
 Different startup ecosystem needs (and strengths) in different countries
 What's holding foreign startups back in Japan
 The dark side of startup events

Links from our Guest

 Everything you ever wanted to know about Antler

 The Asahi Global Sustainability Initiative
 Emurgo and Antler Ibex

 Follow Sandeep on Twitter @sandeepcasi
 Connect with him on LinkedIn

Leave a comment

Transcript
Welcome to Disrupting Japan, Straight Talk from Japan's most innovative founders and VCs.
I'm Tim Romero and thanks for joining me.
There is a truism in venture capital that states no one invests in an idea.
This references the fact that ideas are easy to come up with and they have very little value on their own. But it seems that this truism is not completely true.
Today we sit down with Sandeep Casi, the general partner at Antler Japan, and he explains how Antler does in fact invest in ideas. I mean, in one sense, the truism is still true. Antler only invests in companies. But if you come to them with an idea, they'll invest a lot of resources to help get you from idea to startup.
We also talk about some of the challenges foreign entrepreneurs still face in Japan, the myth of Japanese founders not being able to speak English. And we dive deep into how foreign entrepreneurs are changing how Japanese founders start startups.
But, you know, Sandeep tells that story much better than I can. So, let's get right to the interview.
 
Interview
Tim: So, I'm sitting here with Sandeep Casi, a partner at Antler Japan. So thanks for sitting down with me.
Sandeep: Thanks Tim. And it's a pleasure to be talking to you today and looking forward to it.
Tim: Yeah, well, I should say welcome back to the show because I first had you on maybe eight years ago?
Sandeep: I think, so. It was a while. Yeah, it was about eight years ago.
Tim: When you were running videogram.
Sandeep: That's right.
Tim: But a lot has changed right in the last eight, nine years. So, Antler has a bit of a different model than most of the VCs and accelerators in Japan. So tell me a bit about it.
Sandeep: Just a bit about Antler’s background. We started in 2018 in Singapore. So, Antler is an ecosystem builder. We are not just a VC. So, what do we mean by ecosystem builder? We basically are the first check in most cases, and we take extreme risks as in zero day checks. So, we basically get people to come into our program who actually have an idea, maybe to start a company, but they have absolutely no idea how to go about doing that. They lack co-founders. They probably lack a lot of opportunities that are afforded to other startups that have pre-existing teams. So, when they come into a program, we actually sit with them for 10 weeks. We look at what their mission is,

Foreign founders are changing how Japanese start startups

Progress is not only slower in Japan, it is often different.

Looking at the numbers, it's clear that venture capital is even more male-dominated in Japan than it is in the West. Our guest today explains not only how that's changing, but how she's changing it.

Sophie Meralli is a Partner at Shizen Capital and co-founder of Tokyo Women in VC. We sit down and dive deep into the keys to developing a creative, global mindset among Japanese founders and VCs, the role immigrants have to play in developing Japan's startup culture, and what really works in changing, not only minds, but actions related to the role of women in startups and venture capital.

It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it.

Show Notes

 
The kind of startups Sophie and Shizen are looking for
 Why Japanese AI startups need to be especially careful
 The percentage of Japanese VCs are women, and how it's changed over the past 5 years
 Why more and more VC funds are being started by women in Japan
 What Women in VC does, and how you can get involved
 The main things holding back women in VC in Japan today
 The critical next steps for women in VC
 Is it easier for foreign women to defy gender stereotypes?
 Are Japanese women founders making faster progress than women VCs?
 What a “global mindset” really means for startups
 How to develop cultures of creativity and innovation

Links from our Guest

 Everything you ever wanted to know about Tokyo Women in VC

 Tokyo Women in VC Job Board
 Tokyo Women in VC Research: The 7 Stats

 Shizen Capital
 Friend with Sophie on Facebook
 Follow her on Twitter @Soph_VC
 Info on rate of Japanese Passport holders

Leave a comment

Transcript
Welcome to Disrupting Japan, Straight Talk from Japan's most innovative founders and VCs.
Finance and venture capital in particular has always been male dominated, and in Japan, well, it's even more so, but things are changing here and not quite in the way you might expect.
Today we sit down with Sophie Meralli, a partner at Shizen Capital, and co-founder of Tokyo Women in VC. And we have a frank discussion about what it's really like for female founders and venture capitalists here in Japan.
And some of it is surprising.
In some areas it seems that Japan is ahead of the west and in others, well, not so much. The conversation is at times both frustrating and hopeful. Sophie explains the one thing holding female VCs back more than any other, how things are changing for female founders and for male founders as well, and why so many new Japanese venture funds are being founded by women.
But you know, Sophie tells that story much better than I can. So, let's get right to the interview.
 
Interview
Tim: So we're sitting here with Sophie Meralli, a brand new partner at Shizen Capital. So, thanks for sitting down with me.
Sophie: Thank you so much, Tim. It's a pleasure to be here.
Tim: You're not new to VC, but you're new to Shizen. So, tell me a little bit about your new role, what kind of things you're looking for.
Sophie: Yeah, sure. For me, it's kind of interesting because I was in early stage in Boston and then when I came back to Japan, I was with Eight Roads Ventures for about five and a half years looking more into growth stage startups in FinTech, Enterprise SaaS. And those are really the area that I think are super interesting to me in Japan where I see a lot of potential. And so at Shizen, given this is much more like early stage, there are tons of ideas for which there are already unicorns abroad, but in Japan, those haven't surfaced yet. And I'm really excited to either incubate new businesses or just be able to be a partner for very early stage startups in those sectors.
Tim: Now, you mentioned your experience back at InSpark in Boston?
Sophie: Yes.
Tim: If I recall back then you were looking at AI startups and sort of the previous generation of AI startups.

What it’s really like to be a female VC in Japan

American startups dominate the current innovation cycle not as a result of startup innovation, but of enterprise innovation.

Today we sit down with Dai Watanabe and dive into the dynamics of industry disruption and startup innovation. For the last 25 years Dai has held leadership roles at the center of Japan's major innovation trends. From the glory days of Japan's mobile internet, to the utter disruption unleashed by the iPhone, to today's doubling down on startup innovation.

We talk about what's in store for the future of Japanese startups, and why opportunities in innovation are never quite what they seem at first.

It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it.

Show Notes

 
When it's time for a CVC to transition into a VC
 How Japan lost its lead in the mobile internet
 How DeNA went global in China and then in the US
 Why the first generation mobile advantage did not transfer to the second generation
 The different approach to retaining talent in Tokyo and San Francisco
 What Japanese founders need to bring back from San Francisco
 Which Japanese startups should move to Silicon Valley
 The reason there are still so few Japanese entrepreneurs
 How to get talented employees to leave and start startups, and why we'll see more of it
 The biggest thing holding back startup growth in Japan
 How Japanese employment law keeps startup valuations low
 Japanese enterprise and startups are developing more collaboratively that in the US

Links from our Guest

 Everything you ever wanted to know about Delight Ventures

 Meet the team
 Learn how they invest [Japanese]

 Connect with Dai on LinkedIn

Leave a comment

Transcript
Welcome to Disrupting Japan, Straight Talk from Japan's most innovative founders and VCs.
I'm Tim Romero and thanks for joining me.
Mukashi mukashi, Once Upon a Time, but not so long ago, Japan was far and away the world leader in mobile internet innovation. But such times were not to last. The world changed, Japan changed, and today Japan is trying to catch up.
And, you know, they just might do it.
Today we sit down with my friend Dai Watanabe, co-founder and managing partner of Delight Ventures. And as you'll see from our conversation, Dai's career put him at the center of the entire arc from Japan's mobile internet explosion and crash, the current focus on startup growth and why Japan is now seriously rethinking the Silicon Valley model of startup innovation.
Dai and I dig deep into his work with METI and other agencies to help form innovation policy, how Japan's lifetime employment system is suppressing M&A activity, and keeping valuations low. And why Japanese mamas don't let their babies grow up to be founders.
But, you know, Dai tells that story much better than I can. So, let's get right to the interview.
 
Interview
Tim: So, we're sitting here with Dai Watanabe, the co-founder and managing partner at Delight Ventures. So, thanks for sitting down with me.
Dai: Thank you for having me. Glad to be here.
Tim: Dai, I'm so glad I finally have been able to get you on the show. We've been talking about these things for years now. So DeNA, it's mostly mobile, social gaming, networking, entertainment, sports, consumer facing content, that kind of thing. But Delight's portfolio seems to be much, much broader than that. So, what's your thesis? What kind of companies are you investing in?
Dai: So, the Delight Ventures is a VC fund that started as a spin out of DeNA, my ex-employer. But we are not CVC, so we don't do any strategy investment. We invest as independent VC. We set up some investment thesis at the beginning, which isn't necessarily aligned with DeNA's core strengths.
Tim: Is DeNA still your sole LP?
Dai: No, DeNA is one of the LPs. So, we are on fund two right now. The majority of the LP money is coming from Japanese financial institutions, some corporates banks.
Tim: So DeNA,

Startup success hinges on enterprise innovation

Fifteen years ago, University-run venture funds were all but illegal here in Japan, but today a higher percentage of major Japanese universities have VC funds than in the US or Europe.

Today we sit down with Kei Furukawa, a partner at the University of Tokyo IPC, a $300M venture fund, and we talk about the unique role these funds play in Japan, how they drive innovation in rural areas, and why he has to talk professors out of becoming startup CEOs.

It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it.

Show Notes

 
UTokyo IPC'a mission and investment strategy
 How the Japanese government is trying to accelerate university innovation
 Why the government plans to stop funding university VC funds
 The unique role of University funds in Japan
 How IPC is helping startups work with large enterprises
 Why Japanese CVCs are more founder-friendly than American VCs
 Why Japanese CVC investment increased during covid
 How to talk a professor out of being a startup CEO
 Can startup interaction reform Japan’s universities?
 The challenge in developing innovators outside of the major cities
 Which startup sectors are most promising in Japan
 How senpai culture is holding Japan back

Links from our Guest

 Everything you ever wanted to know about UTokyo IPC
 IPCs 1st Round program
 Follow Kei on X @keisukefurukawa
 Friend him on Facebook
 Connect on LinkedIn

Leave a comment

Transcript
Welcome to Disrupting Japan, Straight Talk from Japan's most innovative founders and VCs.
I'm Tim Romero and thanks for joining me.
University Venture Funds play a much larger role in the startup ecosystem and in startup finance in Japan than they do in the US or Europe. Japanese university funds also operate differently, and fill a different niche than most of their Western counterparts.
Their oversized impact is all the more amazing when you consider that 15 years ago, it was basically illegal for Japanese universities to invest directly in startups, but now they've become a driving force.
Well, today we sit down with Kei Furukawa, a partner at the University of Tokyo IPC. A $300 million University fund, and we dive into how Japanese university VCs invest today and how that's going to be changing in the near future. Oh, and for our overseas listeners in this conversation at different times, Kei and I talk about the University of Tokyo and Todai and UTokyo. It's all the same place. It just goes by many names.
So Kei and I talk about how you can get investment from IPC, even if you're not a University of Tokyo student or faculty. The single biggest challenge to getting university professors on board with what's required to commercialize their research and how the different investment strategies in Japan are leading to a different kind of startup enterprise collaboration than we see in the rest of the world.
But, you know, Kei tells that story much better than I can. So, let's get right to the interview.

Interview
Tim: We're sitting here with Kei Furukawa, a partner at the UTokyo Innovation Platform or IPC. So, thanks for sitting down with me.
Kei: Thank you for having me on.
Tim: In the introduction, I gave a brief description of what IPC is and what you're doing, but could you explain a little bit more? So like, what's your thesis? What are you investing in?
Kei: So, we are a university of Tokyo Innovation platform company. In short, we are called in Japanese Todai IPC. I think there's three major points in our activities. Number one, we are a hundred percent subsidy of the University of Tokyo, which until a few years ago, it was a pretty rare case because national universities were not allowed to have, let's say, investment companies or let's say companies itself under the organization. But we were created for a more government policy point, we are a hundred percent subsidy, which is pretty, I think, unique model around the world that there's a venture capital right u...

Senpai culture is killing innovation in Japan

I love low-tech solutions. They are more likely to be solving real problems, and if we are being honest with ourselves, a true a minimum viable product (or business) usually does not involve cool new technology.

Hiroki Kudo of MerryBiz has rolled out a minimal solution to address their client’s bookkeeping needs, and he is now in the process of trying to gently walk his customers from this small, sustaining innovation to something more disruptive. Something that will change things in the long term. It’s an interesting path to be walking...

The High Profits of Low Tech in Japanese Startups

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