Our Universe

The partners of Start-up101 Ventures offer a great amount of experience in making an alliance between US-based companies and Japan-based companies. The partners have managed relationships in the area of research, product development, marketing, sales, and investment. They have founded and grew technology companies in both countries. The industries they served include semiconductor, multimedia software/hardware, content, communications, materials, healthcare, Software-as-a-Service, super computer, handheld devices, bio-technology and IP licensing, Their financial exit ranges from IPOs to mergers and acquisitions, and technology exit includes joint product roll-out,  IP licensing and IP sale.  Their experiences are instrumental in driving investment activities in the area of energy, agriculture, aquaculture and other industries which present opportunities for the application of new and existing technologies.

Fund Management

The management team of Start-up101 Ventures Funds are experienced professionals on private/public equity and debt financing. The partners put special emphasis on corporate governance for portfolio companies and for the funds.

The team has been managing a couple of funds that manages a portfolio of 15 companies for over a decade.  One of the positions returned 6x in 3 years for the limited partners. Like other successful venture funds, we have both success stories and leaning experiences, which give us insights and foundation to increase success rate. We always pursue best practices.

We are now moving forward to invest for impact. In addition to pursuing market-rate returns, we plan to achieve social missions. found at Impact Reporting and Investment Standards-IRIS. which defines a common language for describing the social and environmental performance of an organization.  IRIS provides an independent and credible set of metrics for organizations to use when reporting their impact. We plan to adopt IRIS as our measure to report social impact.

The partners have formed funds to invest in a specific company in the form of Limited Liability Company as well. This approach will be useful for an impact investment which is embraced by a community that is striving to accomplish a social mission.

The management team advises portfolio companies for the following concerns:

- Value Proposition and Differentiation
- Product development
- Go-to-market strategy (customers & partners)
- Staff recruiting
- Risk management
- Exit strategy

The management team have collectively advised more than 4 dozen start-up companies taking a position of either adviser or a Board member. They also managed alliances between start-ups and strategic customers/partners, such as Applied Materials, Cisco, Fujifilm Corporation, Hitachi, HP, IKOS Systems, LSI Logic, Mitsubishi, NEC,  PFU, Sonics, Sony, Teralogic, Toshiba, VLSI Technology, ZyCad and undisclosed enterprises which generated over $1B revenues.

The partners collectively have more than 100 years of experience in total.