I attended this month’s Mobile Monday Tokyo event, which took place in a bar in Akasaka.
Two presentations were given and both were focused on the venture capital industry in Japan.
Aki Ohashi, partner at venture capital firm NGI, explained how to get financial support from companies like his, what venture capital actually means and highlighted a number of differences to the situation in the US (he is American).
For example, Aki pointed out that funding in Japan is normally relatively modest in comparison and that the US has a longer history in terms of venture capital, resulting in a more vibrant venture capital market and consequently a more active culture of entrepreneurship.
To learn more, please take a look at my earlier report on Aki’s presentation at Tokyo2point0 on Asiajin.
Keis Ide from VC powerhouse Globis Capital followed up with a similar presentation. Globis Capital is one of Japan’s biggest VC companies and actually an investor in NGI. In contrast to NGI however, Globis Capital doesn’t focus on early-stage funding and seeding but prefers financing more developed start-ups. Also, Globis invests in non-IT companies and hardware-based start-ups (NGI usually doesn’t).
Here are some pictures (Aki is on the first picture, Keis on the second):
