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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

While the rest of the world is copying Silicon Valley, Tokyo is looking at Paris.

Today we sit down with Mark Bivens and Matt Romaine, the co-founders of Shizen Capital to talk about Japan's new startup policies, the changing role of M&A, the main force behind the changing attitudes about startups in Japan.

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

Show Notes

 
Why Japanese startups need to start buying other startups
 The root of Japan's odd attitudes towards M&A and the forces changing it
 Structuring investments into foreign startups making a Japan market entry
 Why the Japan's angel investing tax-break is not really about taxes
 What Japan plans to import from the French startup ecosystem
 The best way to win the hearts and minds to change startup culture
 What's driving the recent explosion in startup events, and will it last?
 The best Japanese startup ecosystems outside of Tokyo
 Can authenticity scale?

Links from our Guest

 Everything you ever wanted to know about Shizen Capital

 Connect on LinkedIn
 Follow Shizen Capital on X @shizencapital

 I highly recommend Mark's blog Rude VC
 Follow Mark on X @markbivens
 Follow Matt on X @quanza
 Check out Mark's Nostr https://rude.vc/nostr

Transcript
Welcome to Disrupting Japan, Straight Talk from Japan's most innovative founders and VCs.
I'm Tim Romero and thanks for joining me.
Everybody wants to be Silicon Valley.
Regional and local governments the world over proudly announced that they will be the Silicon Valley of, you know, whatever. We've seen Silicon Glen, Silicon Beach, Silicon Harbor, and countless other less publicized variations. Now, politicians calling out to Silicon Valley works fine as a metaphor, but you know, it's not really a plan.
Well, the Japanese government has a plan and they are not looking to San Francisco, but to Paris.
And today we're going to talk about that plan and so many other things as well. When we sit down with Mark Bivens and Matt Romaine, the co-founders of Shizen Capital, an early stage fund focused exclusively on Japanese startups.
Now, Matt and Mark are both startup founders who became VCs, and that's still pretty rare in Japan. These VCs tend to be overrepresented on disrupting Japan because I don't know, it's a small group and I'm friends with a lot of them. But founders turned, investors are critical to the success of any startup ecosystem, and they're playing an outsized role in shaping what's happening in Japan right now.
Mark, Matt and I talk about what's driving the changing attitude around M&A in Japan, which part of the government efforts to support startups are actually working and Japan's potential advantage in becoming a startup powerhouse in the coming years.
But you know, Matt and Mark tell that story much better than I can. So, let's get right to the interview.

Interview
Tim: We're sitting here with Mark Bivens and Matt Romaine, the two founding partners of Shizen Capital. So, thanks for sitting down with me.
Matt: Delighted to be here.
Mark: Yeah, pleasure. Tim. I think I mentioned this privately to you before, but I'm pretty still relatively new in Japan. Seven years ago I moved here and you were my first source as I wanted to learn about the Japanese startup ecosystem.
Tim: Well, thank you.
Mark: Somebody introducing me to your podcast, so thank you.
Tim: Well, no, thank you. It's been a great project and I'm glad this has kind of come full circle and I get a chance to sit here and interview you on it.
Mark: I also have to say, in a past life I was a radio DJ. You have a great radio voice, Tim.
Tim: Thank you. It's funny, people tell me that all the time, but this is just the way I talk, like normally. Well, thank you. So, let's get into it. So, tell me about Shizen Capital. Who are you investing in and why?
Matt: Yeah, well, so I first met Mark in 2015 at a conference in Fukuoka. It was the B dash conference.

Why Japan is looking to France for startup inspiration

Japan is lagging behind in AI, but that might not be the case for long.
Today we sit down with Jad Tarifi, current founder of Integral AI and previously, founder of Google’s first Generative AI team, and we talk about some of Japan's potential advantages in AI, the most likely path to AGI, and how small AI startups can compete against the over-funded AI giants.
It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it.

Show Notes

 
Why Jad felt Google was not pursuing the best path toward AGI
 The fundamental AI scaling problem and likely solutions
 Why robotics is critical for the advancement of AI (and the not the other way around)
 Why Japan is the ideal place to build a new AI startup
 The reason it is so difficult for robotics startups to make money
 Why humanoid robots are a dead-end
 How AI startups can compete with the foundation-model comnpanies
 How we get to AGI from our current AI
 Solutions to the alignment problem
 The challenge of making AI fundamentally benevolent
 The biggest challenge in AI development is not technological

Links from our Guest

 Everything you ever wanted to know about Integral AI

 Stream product announcement

 Follow Jad on X @jad_tarifi
 Friend him on Facebook
 Connect on LinkedIn
 Check out Jad's new book The Rise of Superintelligence

 ... and the companion Freedom Series website

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 is lagging behind in AI, but that was not always the case. And it won't necessarily be the case in the future.
Today we sit down with Jad Tarifi, current founder of Integral AI, and previously founder of Google's first generative AI team. We talk about his decision to leave Google after over a decade of groundbreaking research to focus on what he sees as a better, faster path to AGI or artificial general intelligence. And then to super intelligence.
It's a fascinating discussion that begins very practically and gets more and more philosophical as we go on.
We talk about the key role robotics has to play in reaching AGI, how to leverage the overlooked AI development talent here in Japan, how small startups can compete against today's AI giants, and then how we can live with AI, how to keep our interest aligned.
And at the end, one important thing Elon Musk shows us about our relationship to AI. And I guarantee it's not what you, and certainly not what Elon thinks it is.
But you know, Jad tells that story much better than I can. So, let's get right to the interview.

Interview
Tim: I am sitting here with Jad Tarifi, founder of Integral AI, so thanks for sitting down with me.
Jad: Thank you.
Tim: Integral AI, you guys are “unlocking, scalable, robust general intelligence.” Now that's a pretty big claim, so let's break that down. What exactly are you guys doing?
Jad: So, when we look at generative AI models right now, they usually operate as a black box. And because they have minimal assumptions on the data, they have to do a lot of work and they tend to be inefficient in terms of the amount of data they need and the amount of compute. We're taking a different approach that's inspired by the architecture of the neocortex, which roughly speaking follows a hierarchical design where different layers produce abstractions and then feed into higher layers that create abstractions of abstractions and so on.
Tim: Okay, so this is not an LLM architecture or is this a kind of LLM architecture?
Jad: When people talk about LLM, usually they talk about auto regressive transformer networks. So this would be a different type of architecture than that. However we can use transformers or other models like diffusion models as building blocks within that overall architecture.
Tim: It's interesting that you took a different path than LLMs because you're not new to AI.

How AI startups can compete with the AI giants

Most outside of the energy industry are (pleasantly) surprised to learn how aggressively startups and CVCs are pushing decarbonization forward.

Decarbonization is a fascinating and incredibly important issue, so please join me on this short but special episode.

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

Transcript
Welcome to Disrupting Japan, Straight Talk from Japan's most innovative founders and VCs.
I'm Tim Romero and thanks for joining me.
This is a short episode.
I wanted to share with you a panel discussion I moderated at the Global Corporate Venturing Asia Congress on the role that CVCs are playing in the green energy transition. It's an inside look at what some of the leaders in the field are thinking.
You'll hear from Sophia Nadur, the managing director of APAC and Middle East at BP Ventures. Nicole LeBlanc, partner at Woven Capital, and Jim Aota, chairman of Yamaha Motor Ventures.
You know, outside of the industry, a lot of people are surprised to learn just how active and supportive of startups global energy and transport companies can be and how they're working to push meaningful innovations into the marketplace.
So here are some quick insights into how some of the world's leading energy related companies are working with startups to green our power system and transition us all to a sustainable future. We talk about the specific kinds of startups we're looking to invest in, the different ways we have to support and work with startups and what we see is the most exciting energy startup trends for the next three to five years.
But you know, the panel tells that story much better than I can. So, let's get right to the interview.
 
Interview
Tim: Okay, thank you so much. I am really looking forward. We're going to be talking about how CVCs are supporting and fueling the growth of energy startups all over the world. And to start off, I'd like to do brief, brief introductions because there's four of us here. So I'm Tim Romero, I'm a partner at JERA Ventures. JERA is a Japanese electric utility. We generate about a third of Japan's electricity. We're investing in decarbonization, new business models and energy and looking for the best companies globally to bring to Japan. I also, for the last 10 years, have been running the Disrupting Japan podcast that talks about VCs and startups in Japan. And this is important because this is being recorded to release on the podcast. So, you are all part of the show.
Nicole: Hi everybody. Nicole LeBlace. I'm a partner with Woven Capital and longtime listener of Tim's podcast. So, we're the Growth Venture fund for Toyota. So, we look at growth stage companies typically that are able to work with Toyota across a number of different sectors. So energy that we're about to talk about here is certainly one, but also looking at supply chain automation. And if you think about mobility 3.0, connected cars, that sort of thing. Our team is mainly based here in Tokyo, including myself, but we also have people in the US and in the UK.
Sophia: Hi, I'm Sophia Nadur, MD for Asia Pacific and Middle East at BP Ventures. BP Ventures is a global energy company. I am delighted to have Masaki Kaison, who's the head of BP Japan with me, such as the importance that we are placing on looking for investments in Japan right now. We have $850 million assets under management. We invest $150 million at least every year from our balance sheet. We invest in series A, series B, potentially series C companies who are scaling up energy transition related offers, which could include battery storage, offshore wind, solar, hydrogen, mobility, even retail and convenience. Even these areas are of interest to us and we are actively looking to invest in in Japan. We have two, nearly three investments in India, two in China, and two in Australia. Just in this region alone.
Jim: Right. So, my name is Jim Aota and I am the chairman of the Yamaha Model Ventures,

How CVCs and startups are decarbonizing energy

Japanese business loves paper.

From fax machines, to business cards, to massive project binders. Paper processes are slow to die in Japan, especially in industrial facilities.

Today we talk with Jumpei Yoshida of Kaminashi who explains why that's finally changing and how foreign workers are driving the transformation.

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

Show Notes

 
What is Kaminashi, and who is using it?
 Why it took Kaminashi four years to to gain traction
 The biggest challenge in digitizing blue-collar industries
 Advice for selling software to Japanese companies
 How foreign workers are driving digital transformation in Japan
 How to reach analog customers
 The sales cycle for SMB and enterprise software
 Why enterprise sales in Japan is fundamentally different from in the West
 Kaminashi’s global expansion plans
 Real innovation comes next

Links from our Guest

 Everything you ever wanted to know about Kaminashi

 ... and about their products

 Connect with Jumpei on LinkedIn

 

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 is unquestionably one of the most advanced nations in the world, and yet corporate Japan's love of paper processes and its resistance to going digital has become kind of a running joke even within Japan.
At the more traditional industries all over Japan, at corporate headquarters, regional offices and frontline facilities you'll still see people rushing about carrying thick three ring binders to prove to the rest of the office that they are busy and productive. It seems some things never change.
So, why?
Explaining this kind of thing is a cultural difference is a cop out. It doesn't actually explain anything. It ignores potentially valuable business opportunities. And more important, it overlooks the startups that are finally beginning to change things.
And so today we sit down with Jumpei Yoshida of Kaminashi - a name that literally means paperless - and he explains how Kaminashi is pulling factories, food processing, and other critical industrial processes into the digital age.
We talk frankly about why it's taken Japan so long to begin this transition and the recent trigger that has really kicked open the market. Jumpei also shares some great advice about how to sell innovation to conservative Japanese companies, the importance of foreign workforce to Japan's future prosperity and what to expect if you're a startup selling to SMBs in Japan.
But, you know, Jumpei tells that story much better than I can. So let's get right to the interview.

Interview
Tim: So, I'm sitting here with Jumpei Yoshida, the CFO of Kaminashi, who's digitizing frontline and field service work. So, thanks for sitting down.
Jumpei: Thank you for inviting me.
Tim: It's a pleasure to have you on. Now I gave a really high level explanation of what Kaminashi does, but I think you can explain it much better than I can.
Jumpei: Sure. Kaminashi is a company focused on providing SaaS solutions to empower frontline workers. Our main offering include tools that digitize and streamline paper-based workflows.
Tim: What is the primary focus? Is it mostly just checklists? Is it inspection comments, like approval, workflow? What kind of things does it cover?
Jumpei: The application itself is checklist, but there are so many variety of usage.
Tim: And what about the hardware runs on, is it iOS, Android, is it onsite terminals?
Jumpei: Initially it was only for iOS and iPad, but now our products can use any devices like Windows or Android. Now it's on the web-based software.
Tim: Now a bit later I want to get into more detail about the business model and the value you're providing beyond just the checklists. But tell me about your customers.
Jumpei: Regarding our flagship product Kaminashi report,

The catalyst (finally!) pulling industrial Japan into the digital age

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 so much happening in Japan right now.
Startups and innovation are beginning to reshape Japan with the same dynamism we saw during the post-war boom or the Meji-era re-opening.
And I’ve been in the middle of this for a long time. I’m now a partner a JERA Ventures, but over the over 30 years that I’ve lived in Japan, I’ve started four startups here, worked at TEPCO Ventures, ran Google for Startups Japan, and, of course, I’ve been running the Disrupting Japan podcast for more than 10 years.
Every episode, I sit down with friends, VCs, founders, and leaders who are shaping Japan’s startup ecosystem to give you an inside look at what’s really happening here in Japan.
So, please subscribe and join me on this journey.
I’m Tim Romero, and thanks for listening to Disrupting Japan.

Welcome to Disrupting Japan (Podcast Trailer)

While American AI startups are dominating the headlines, one Japanese company has begun rolling out "AI employees" to famously cautious Japanese enterprise customers.

Today we talk with Shota Nakagawa the CEO of Caster and discuss their model of human-AI collaboration, why Japan is positioned to lead real-world AI deployment, and the big steps needed for Japan to catch up with the West.

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

Show Notes

 
Caster’s new model for gig-workers
 Why almost 90% of Caster's workforce are women
 How remote work is evolving differently in Japan than in the US
 Can remote work really revitalise rural Japan?
 Why Caster uses full time staff rather than gig workers
 How AI employees could be the solution to Japan’s labor shortage
 How Caster makes extensive use of AI in their workflow today
 What is responsoble for the low level of trust that Japanese have in AI and how to fix it
 Which tasks AI agents will take over and which they will never do

Links from our Guest

 Everything you ever wanted to know about Caster

 Follow Caster on X @caster_jp
 Friend Caster on Facebook

 Friend Shota on Facebook
 Follow him on X @nakasy000

Leave a comment
Errata

 Caster's percentage of female employees is about 87% not 95%.
 Caster was founded in Tokyo, later moved to Miyazaki, and then moved back to Tokyo after the IPO

Transcript
Welcome to Disrupting Japan, Straight Talk from Japan's most innovative founders and VCs.
I'm Tim Romero, and thanks for joining me.
While American CEOs are competing to see how quickly they can leverage AI to replace both full-time employees and gig workers alike, one Japanese company is taking a different approach and they're already rolling out their AI workforce.
Today we sit down with Shota Nakagawa, founder and CEO of Caster. Now, Caster is a remarkably progressive and innovative Japanese company. They were a strong and vocal advocate of remote work years before the pandemic hit, and even after their IPO, their 800 person workforce remains fully remote with our corporate headquarters located in a shared office space in Tokyo.
Caster has now begun rolling out its AI workforce, and they're taking a very Japanese approach. Rather than leveraging a collection of flexible gig workers or freelancers, Caster continues to build a long-term full-time workforce who is co-developing and already working alongside their AI employees.
If history is any guide, Caster’s thinking today might tell us what the Japanese market will be thinking 10 years from now.
Shota and I talk about the long-term AI trends in Japan, how Caster solve the problem of corporate, Japan's deep skepticism about AI and whether or not AI can really provide a solution to the economic problems associated with Japan's declining population.
But, you know, Shota tells that story much better than I can. So, let's get right to the interview.

Interview
Tim: So, I'm sitting here with Shota Nakagawa, the founder and CEO of Caster, who is creator of an outsourcing platform and a relentless advocate of remote work. So thanks for sitting down with me.
Shota: Thank you very much.
Tim: So, I explained very briefly what Caster did in the intro, but I think you can explain it much better than I can. So, what does Caster do? Why is it unique?
Shota: People are all work remote every day, every day.
Tim: So, the entire company is remote.
Shota: Yeah, yeah. All people.
Tim: That's pretty unusual. And we're here today actually sitting in a share office space to have this conversation. Well, actually let's talk about that in detail later. But first, let's talk a little more about Caster. So, what do you do for your customers?
Shota: BPO, business process outsourcing, client about SMB small business, want back office service.
Tim: So, what kind of back office services, is it like recruiting, accounting?
Shota: Many types.
Tim: So,

How AI employees are solving Japan’s labor shortage

Today we are going to break down some startup stereotypes.

I sit down with Kunio Hara, co-founder and CEO of Beatrust and break apart the stereotypes of the uncreative Japanese enterprise and the young startup founder, and Kunio explains how Beatrust is already teaching old dogs new tricks.

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

Show Notes

 
How Japanese enterprises are different from their US large counterparts
 Things to know when starting a company in your late 50s
 Why older founders lead to more successful outcomes
 Challenges in breaking the age-hierarchy in Japan
 Can software actually make people collaborate?
 What it takes to get Japanese firms to innovate and collaborate freely
 Does Japan's management style have to change or can innovation happen within it?
 Why American companies will also soon have to change their work styles
 What new founders need to keep their eyes on when starting a startup

Links from our Guest

 Everything you ever wanted to know about Beatrust

 Follow Beatrust on X @jp_beatrust
 Beatrust on Note
 Get in touch with Beatrust

 Connect with Kunio on LinkedIn
 Friend him 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.
I didn't really realize what this episode was about until I finished the editing. Oh, don't worry. I'll be introducing you to an innovative founder in just a minute, and we'll dive deep into their business and their market.
But this episode is really about stereotypes, how much truth they really have and why they stay with us, and what we can do to change both the perceptions and the realities that underlie them.
Today we sit down with Kunio Hara, co-founder and CEO of Beatrust, a startup that's focused on getting Japanese enterprises to break from their hierarchical structures and let their employees collaborate. Listeners who have spent time in Japan know that this is not an easy task, but as we explore this subject, it becomes clear that both the reality and the solutions are not as straightforward as the stereotype suggest.
We also explore the stereotype of the young Rebel startup founder, and man that is a pervasive one. In 2007, a 22-year-old, Mark Zuckerberg famously declared that quote, young people are just smarter. Paul Graham explained in 2013 that investors tend to be skeptical of any founder who is over 32 years old.
However, if you take the time to look at the real world results, the data actually show that older founders are much more likely to have a large value exit than younger founders. Kunio started Beatrust in his late fifties, and we talk about the positives and the negatives associated with that.
But, you know, Kunio tells that story much better than I can. So let's get right to the interview.

Interview
Tim: So, I'm sitting here with Kunio Hara, the co-founder and CEO of Beatrust, who is modernizing corporate collaboration and culture in Japan. So, thanks for sitting down with me.
Kunio: Yeah, thank you, Tim. Long time no see.
Tim: Yeah, it has been a while since you're at Google. So Beatrust is focused on helping employees collaborate. This is important. Everyone agrees it's important. But it's hard. So what is Beatrust doing differently in this space?
Kunio: We call our service talent collaboration tools because we try to define the new space and compare with other HR tech, especially talent management. What we do is mainly to help large organizations drive and facilitate more autonomous collaboration like cross functions.
Tim: Okay. Yeah, that's challenging and in a bit, I want to dive deep into exactly how you do that. But before that, tell me about your customers. So, who's using Beatrust?
Kunio: Obviously, large enterprise customers. They want to transform the culture to more innovative oriented,

Software alone can’t make us work together

(sketch by Kaori Rei)Today we are going to sit down with an old friend.

It was over seven years ago when I first had Tim Rowe on the podcast, and we mapped out what we saw as the future of startup innovation in Japan. In today's short episode, we talk about what we got right. what surprised us, and what we think is next for Japanese startup innovation.

It's a great conversation, 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'd like to share a special short in between episode with you.
Last month I had a fireside chat with Tim Rowe, the founder and CEO of the Cambridge Innovation Center at the Global Venture Cafe's anniversary celebration in Tokyo. And I thought I would share it with you just as it happened. I first had Tim on the show about eight years ago, just before CIC opened their Big Tokyo collaboration space.
This time Tim and I talk about the changes to the Japanese startup ecosystem since then, what we are likely to see in the future, and we also discuss what might be a new model for startup ecosystems. As startups have become more and more accepted and more and more common. The old community playbook may not be as effective as it once was.
But Tim tells that story much better than I can. So, let's get right to the interview.

Interview
Romero: All right, Tim, it is great to be sitting down with you again. And as a bit of background for the audience. You and I back in 2017, we were sitting down over coffee in Tokyo and you were telling me about your plans to open Venture Cafe and CIC and I remember asking you like, how the hell are you going to fill 6,000 square meters of co-working space in Tokyo? And here we are. Venture Cafe is one of the driving forces in the startup ecosystem. CIC is over capacity. I have never been so delighted to have my doubts proven wrong, so congratulations on that.
Rowe: Thank you, Tim. Glad to be here.
Romero: Before we dig in, you've got ties to Japan. You've been working with Japan for a long time, so can you tell us a little bit about what was your involvement in Japan in the 90s and forward?
Rowe: Okay, so a bit of background. I'm from Cambridge, Massachusetts. My father was a professor at Harvard. My mother was a professor at MIT, so I'm one of those kids. And I was fortunate to be exposed a bit to the world. My grandmother had spent about a decade in Asia in the 1920s. And she used to teach me kanji when I was little. And so I didn't know much about Asia, but I thought this was really interesting. And I learned later that my great-grandfather arrived in Yokohama in 1919. He was then acting Surgeon General for the United States. And he was on a world trip to kind of build connections and relationships. So, we go back a little ways in Asia. My father, when I was in high school, did something that I think all the parents in the room should do. He said, look you should learn a little bit about the rest of the world. And he said, if you learn Japanese, I'll give you an opportunity to work in my company's Tokyo office for the summer. And I said, okay, deal. And I started studying Japanese. I didn't know the language at all, but it seemed like a cool opportunity. By the way, a generation later, I made the same offer to my oldest child. Actually, I made the offer to all my children, but my oldest child took me up and he came and worked in Tokyo also when he was 16.
Kihara-san, I understand that you did something similar. You were in school in Chicago and in Amsterdam when you were young. And clearly your English reflects that experience. I think all of us should have this opportunity to go out of our usual comfort zone and work in another country and learn about other cultures. But that's my background. So, I did a year at Dosha University later as an exchange student from Amherst College.

How to build a successful startup community

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

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,

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Makuake is one of Japan's largest crowdfunding platforms. It was spun out of CyberAgent in 2013 with Ryotaro Nakayama (or Naka as his foreign friends call him) as CEO.

Crowdfunding has taken off more slowly in Japan than it has in the US, and it has followed a different growth path. It started out primarily as a way to raise money for charitable causes and at the moment crowdfunding seems to be having a more significant impact on corporate Japan than on smaller Japanese ventures.

Crowdfunding in Japan is Not About Startups – Ryotaro Nakayama

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