THE BRIDGE

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Venture Capital: why AUM is the wrong metric

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This guest post is authored by Mark Bivens. Mark is a Silicon Valley native and former entrepreneur, having started three companies before “turning to the dark side of VC.” He is a venture capitalist that travels between Paris and Tokyo (aka the RudeVC). He is the Managing Partner of Shizen Capital (formerly known as Tachi.ai Ventures) in Japan. You can read more on his blog at http://rude.vc or follow him @markbivens. The Japanese translation of this article is available here. There’s an old dig that venture capitalists like to make about private equity professionals: private equity folks boast about the size of their ego in AUM, whereas VCs know that what really matters is their IRR. Now let’s define these three-letter words. First, I’m using the word ego as a euphemism here to be gender agnostic (albeit in reality it’s usually only men who tend to make this brag). AUM means assets under management (i.e. the total amount of money in the funds managed by the general partner team). IRR means internal rate of return (i.e. the cash returns distributed to a fund’s investors, annualized). Asset managers care about AUM because it directly translates into guaranteed revenue. Closed-end investment funds…

mark-bivens_portrait

This guest post is authored by Mark Bivens. Mark is a Silicon Valley native and former entrepreneur, having started three companies before “turning to the dark side of VC.”

He is a venture capitalist that travels between Paris and Tokyo (aka the RudeVC). He is the Managing Partner of Shizen Capital (formerly known as Tachi.ai Ventures) in Japan. You can read more on his blog at http://rude.vc or follow him @markbivens. The Japanese translation of this article is available here.

Image credit: Pixnio

There’s an old dig that venture capitalists like to make about private equity professionals: private equity folks boast about the size of their ego in AUM, whereas VCs know that what really matters is their IRR.

Now let’s define these three-letter words. First, I’m using the word ego as a euphemism here to be gender agnostic (albeit in reality it’s usually only men who tend to make this brag). AUM means assets under management (i.e. the total amount of money in the funds managed by the general partner team). IRR means internal rate of return (i.e. the cash returns distributed to a fund’s investors, annualized).

Asset managers care about AUM because it directly translates into guaranteed revenue. Closed-end investment funds typically follow a “2 and 20 model,” meaning annual management fees of 2% and a share of 20% of the capital gains generated by the fund (aka carried interest). The annual management fees are a direct function of AUM, i.e. 2% of total AUM each year. They are contractually established for the life of the fund, usually 10 years. The carried interest is a direct function of fund performance, i.e. 20% of the capital gains generated by the fund.

Accordingly, a large AUM directly translates into a significant guaranteed revenue stream for the entire life of the fund. A fund manager with $1 billion in AUM is probably receiving around $20 million per year in recurring revenue. A micro VC fund of say $10 million is receiving only $200k per year in recurring revenue via its management fees. 

Risk of misalignment

Since management fees are meant to cover the operations of the fund, excessively high management fees can translate into high salaries for the managing partners, luxurious offices, and lavish parties. Even if the fund’s financial performance is lackluster, a guaranteed annual revenue stream in the double-digit millions for several years makes for a fairly comfortable lifestyle. Do you see where a potential misalignment can emerge?

In contrast, a small VC fund can afford no such excesses. The managers of a small VC fund cannot become wealthy on management fees alone. They must perform. Only by generating significant capital gains on the funds they manage will they be able to generate wealth for themselves via the carried interest mechanism. IRR represents each fund’s financial performance.

For LP investors in private equity or VC funds who care about financial return, IRR is the metric that reflects their financial return, not AUM. So I submit that when a fund manager brags about their AUM, the appropriate rebuttal would be to ask their IRR.

Full disclosure: I too used to be guilty of the AUM flex. As a former GP in a fund that managed nearly $1 billion in AUM, I would often open my introduction at conferences by citing this figure. But over time, I learned that IRR represents my true KPI as a fund manager. IRR is the indicator of how well or how poorly I perform my job. It is not a mathematical anomaly that my best-performing funds have been those with smaller fund sizes, hence lower AUM.

In many ways actually, a propensity to chatter more about AUM than IRR is an indication of the stage of an ecosystem. When the venture market in a given region is still nascent, track records are limited, so the nearest metric people can look for is assets under management. However, once a fund manager has progressed beyond their first vintage, the more the relevant question to ask is, “So what is your IRR?”

Blogging as a recruiting tool

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This guest post is authored by Mark Bivens. Mark is a Silicon Valley native and former entrepreneur, having started three companies before “turning to the dark side of VC.” He is a venture capitalist that travels between Paris and Tokyo (aka the RudeVC). He is the Managing Partner of Shizen Capital (formerly known as Tachi.ai Ventures) in Japan. You can read more on his blog at http://rude.vc or follow him @markbivens. The Japanese translation of this article is available here. During a return visit to France last month, I caught up with a successful French entrepreneur (whom I wish I would have backed on his first venture, but that’s another story). Anyway, he opened the conversation with flattery, claiming that I had inspired him. So of course I’m growing suspicious at this point, either expecting a punch line or reconsidering my assessment of his sound judgment. But he wasn’t joking. Rather, he stated that a blog post I wrote several years ago inspired him to adopt a habit which has now given his company a competitive advantage in recruiting talent. Specifically, he was referring to something that I had written way back in 2013: The importance of blogging for entrepreneurs….

mark-bivens_portrait

This guest post is authored by Mark Bivens. Mark is a Silicon Valley native and former entrepreneur, having started three companies before “turning to the dark side of VC.”

He is a venture capitalist that travels between Paris and Tokyo (aka the RudeVC). He is the Managing Partner of Shizen Capital (formerly known as Tachi.ai Ventures) in Japan. You can read more on his blog at http://rude.vc or follow him @markbivens. The Japanese translation of this article is available here.

Image credit: Pxfuel

During a return visit to France last month, I caught up with a successful French entrepreneur (whom I wish I would have backed on his first venture, but that’s another story). Anyway, he opened the conversation with flattery, claiming that I had inspired him. So of course I’m growing suspicious at this point, either expecting a punch line or reconsidering my assessment of his sound judgment. But he wasn’t joking. Rather, he stated that a blog post I wrote several years ago inspired him to adopt a habit which has now given his company a competitive advantage in recruiting talent.

Specifically, he was referring to something that I had written way back in 2013: The importance of blogging for entrepreneurs.

As I posited back then, regular blogging is about far more than shameless self-promotion; it’s about communication of thoughts, transparency in opinions, and beta-testing ideas with the sounding board of your readers. Regular blogging exercises the muscles of intuition and creativity. It facilitates achieving clarity in your mind’s eye, and it establishes you as a thought leader in your domain.

The fifth benefit I had cited in particular has proven especially relevant to this French entrepreneur I caught up with. Consistent blogging over the years is paying dividends to him now as his most effective recruiting tool.

The market for hiring talent, especially software developers, is insanely competitive right now across Europe, he told me. Startups are finding themselves outbid for developers by deep-pocketed incumbent companies, or increasingly, by other startups who have recently closed on massive fundraising rounds.

By having established his voice over the years through blogging, this guy inadvertently compiled a loyal following of readers who subscribe to the narrative of his ambition. Now, when he posts a job opening, he benefits from a ready-made audience. Better yet, candidates from this audience often prove to fit well culturally, because they’ve already been indoctrinated into his company’s vision over the years.

Blogging is playing a long game. The fruits of it do not appear immediately, causing many people to abandon it prematurely. Yet this entrepreneur is now reaping the rewards of his long-term investment. Given today’s war for talent, by accelerating the recruiting process and attracting individuals who are already on board with his project, the returns are astronomical.

Granted, the world has changed in the 8 years since I originally wrote that piece on the powers of blogging. There are other ways to evangelize and build a following as an entrepreneur. Podcasting, for example.

Creating something that does not rely on the approval of others can offer limitless upside. Naval Ravikant refers to this concept as permissionless leverage.

I like this articulation and will adopt it too.

Why I tend to prefer equity rounds over notes

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This guest post is authored by Mark Bivens. Mark is a Silicon Valley native and former entrepreneur, having started three companies before “turning to the dark side of VC.” He is a venture capitalist that travels between Paris and Tokyo (aka the RudeVC). He is the Managing Partner of Shizen Capital (formerly known as Tachi.ai Ventures) in Japan. You can read more on his blog at http://rude.vc or follow him @markbivens. The Japanese translation of this article is available here. All but two of my last 10 investments have taken the form of straight equity. Furthermore, all of the deals in which Shizen Capital was lead investor over the past two years have also been for equity rounds. In this post I will lay out the reasons that I prefer equity rounds to convertible notes or SAFE notes in early stage venture investments. For simplicity here, I will use the generic term note to encompass any type of non-equity instrument that is convertible into a startup’s equity in the future based on certain conditions. This includes therefore classic convertible notes as well as SAFE and JKISS notes. [Note: there are some key distinctions in the implementation; notably, SAFE and JKISS…

mark-bivens_portrait

This guest post is authored by Mark Bivens. Mark is a Silicon Valley native and former entrepreneur, having started three companies before “turning to the dark side of VC.”

He is a venture capitalist that travels between Paris and Tokyo (aka the RudeVC). He is the Managing Partner of Shizen Capital (formerly known as Tachi.ai Ventures) in Japan. You can read more on his blog at http://rude.vc or follow him @markbivens. The Japanese translation of this article is available here.

Modified from a Pixabay image

All but two of my last 10 investments have taken the form of straight equity. Furthermore, all of the deals in which Shizen Capital was lead investor over the past two years have also been for equity rounds. In this post I will lay out the reasons that I prefer equity rounds to convertible notes or SAFE notes in early stage venture investments.

For simplicity here, I will use the generic term note to encompass any type of non-equity instrument that is convertible into a startup’s equity in the future based on certain conditions. This includes therefore classic convertible notes as well as SAFE and JKISS notes. [Note: there are some key distinctions in the implementation; notably, SAFE and JKISS notes generally behave more like warrants than debt, in that they typically do not carry an interest rate nor a maturity date).

My preference for investing with equity rather than a note center on two of the guiding principles we hold dear at Shizen Capital when partnering with founders: alignment and transparency.

First, let’s revisit why notes can seem more alluring than a priced equity round

  1. they are less costly and more expedient to implement from a legal perspective
  2. they sidestep a difficult negotiation over valuation
  3. they can surmount a conflict of interest for investors during an internal round
  4. they grant investors additional optionality and seniority in the financing of the company

Now let’s discuss these characteristics one by one:

True, a note agreement is simply a contract between two parties: the investor (as note-holder) and the startup. At a future point, the note converts into equity or is reimbursed, based on conditions defined in the agreement.

Since no equity is being issued at the time of a note financing, corporate formalities and legal filings are unnecessary. There is no need to update the articles of association, draft a shareholders agreement, or make any formal filings. The investor could even dispense with hiring a lawyer entirely for such a transaction, thus saving fees (the founders could do so as well, though I personally recommend founders seek at least some minimum level of legal counsel). However, once the future hoped-for equity round materializes, all of these aforementioned legal formalities will become necessary.

SAFE notes can be fast but only if the investor moves fast

In theory, transactions with notes (again, including SAFE’s and JKISS’s here) are faster to implement then equity rounds. In theory. If handled deftly, a straightforward equity investment should take a few weeks to implement. A note, in contrast, can be implemented within a few days (especially a SAFE or JKISS, which are based on a standard template). However, I find it cringe-worthy all too often to hear founders lament to me about how their fundraising efforts via a note are dragging out for weeks or months. I admittedly have not performed a scientific analysis on this, but anecdotally my observations are that weeks or months of note discussions are not uncommon in many regions outside of Silicon Valley.

Postponing uncomfortable conversations

Sidestepping a difficult negotiation on valuation can also be an appealing feature of financing via a note, which does not place a price on the equity of the company at the time of the transaction. If a founder and investor cannot agree on valuation at the time of the fundraising, a note postpones this uncomfortable conversation on price.

The distinction between convertible notes and SAFE notes becomes relevant here. While a convertible note often eliminates any reference to valuation, a SAFE note by its very construction usually contains a valuation cap. This valuation cap does not represent the valuation of the company at the time, but it does require some negotiated consensus between the parties, and it also lays the groundwork for future signaling to the market.

Transparency

Furthermore, this is where the principle of transparency comes in. Postponing the uncomfortable valuation conversation is simply kicking the can down the road. Eventually this conversation has to take place, and the stakes will likely be much higher in the future than today. Moreover, numerous other unexpected consequences can arise from this approach. Because I’ve seen this play out across a vast number of companies over the years, often to the detriment of founders, I feel that in the spirit of transparency I have an obligation to alert founders to what I’ve witnessed. [Note: I’ve raised the alarm in detail on this issue here. And here is the Japanese version of the same piece]

Internal rounds

For most professional VC funds, internal rounds can raise compliance issues if not done properly. For avoidance of doubt, by internal round I mean a future financing round of a startup where no significant external parties invest in the company. A VC fund refinancing one of its existing portfolio companies without an external market participant would be required to justify the subsequent valuation if the new round is priced in equity, reflecting an inherent conflict of interest. Employing a convertible note (often structured as a convertible bridge loan in these instances) can surmount this issue

Risk of misalignment

Lastly, financing via a note naturally grants the investor an additional degree of optionality and potentially even seniority in the fundraising.

Let’s start with the notion of seniority (more flagrant in convertible notes than in SAFE or JKISS notes). From an investor’s perspective, sitting senior to all the shareholders in a company offers the best of both worlds: if things go well, convert and reap the upside; if things don’t go well, redeem for your money back plus interest, even if it throws the company into financial distress. Accordingly, the terms of a convertible note document matter. Founders need to review the fine print before entering into one.

The notion of optionality is a bit more nuanced. As a VC, I welcome optionality; in fact I actively seek it out for sound portfolio management. However, I want the founders into whom I invest to fully understand the implications of it in the case of notes. Let’s illustrate with a simple example: the VC invests 50 million yen in a seed round via a SAFE note that contains a 20% discount and a 400 million yen valuation cap. When it’s time for the Series A, the respective interests of the investor and founder diverge due to a slight misalignment. The founder’s proximate incentive is to boost the valuation of the series A higher, and preferably high enough to neutralize the discount, i.e. above 500M¥. In contrast, the investor’s incentive favors a lower valuation, because the lower the valuation of the Series A, the greater the number of shares into which the investor’s note will convert. Had the seed round been raised as a priced equity round rather than via a note, both founder and investor would be aligned in the dilution they would face from the future Series A.

I am not ideologically opposed to investing notes. Here at Shizen Capital we approach every prospective investment as a long-term relationship. Accordingly, we believe that the better we can align incentives and act with transparency with the founders we back, the healthier and more fruitful our collective partnership will be.

Why the next tech revolution will be about impact

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This is a guest post by Trista Bridges. Its Japanese translation is available on Bridge’s Japanese edition. Trista is a strategy and sustainable business expert, who’s passionate about changing business for good. Strongly believing that sustainable business = smart business, she co-founded Read the Air to shift mindsets, business strategies, and ways of working towards business models that put sustainability at the core. She’s worked across various sectors including in digital media, healthcare, consumer products, and financial services. Trista is co-author of the recently released “Leading Sustainably: The path to sustainable business and how the SDGs changed everything“ By now, you are undoubtedly aware of how sustainability has emerged as the zeitgeist of the moment – ESG investments have grown leaps and bounds in Japan and elsewhere, while the SDGs have been embraced by governments, businesses and individuals alike. Although there is no shortage of “greenwashing” at the moment, it’s undeniable that there’s a fundamental change afoot in respect to our vision of society. There’s widespread awareness that our world has some pretty audacious problems to address – from social equality to climate change and everything in between. The urgency of addressing these issues has increased, but the verdict is…

Trista Bridges
©Dan Taylor/Heisenberg Media

This is a guest post by Trista Bridges. Its Japanese translation is available on Bridge’s Japanese edition.

Trista is a strategy and sustainable business expert, who’s passionate about changing business for good. Strongly believing that sustainable business = smart business, she co-founded Read the Air to shift mindsets, business strategies, and ways of working towards business models that put sustainability at the core.

She’s worked across various sectors including in digital media, healthcare, consumer products, and financial services. Trista is co-author of the recently released “Leading Sustainably: The path to sustainable business and how the SDGs changed everything


By now, you are undoubtedly aware of how sustainability has emerged as the zeitgeist of the moment – ESG investments have grown leaps and bounds in Japan and elsewhere, while the SDGs have been embraced by governments, businesses and individuals alike. Although there is no shortage of “greenwashing” at the moment, it’s undeniable that there’s a fundamental change afoot in respect to our vision of society. There’s widespread awareness that our world has some pretty audacious problems to address – from social equality to climate change and everything in between. The urgency of addressing these issues has increased, but the verdict is still out on how to best fix these problems and whose responsibility it is to do so.

Businesses are being asked to do more

In the past, we instinctively turned to the state to fix problems such as these. But we now know that government won’t be able to tackle these challenges on its own. We have transitioned to a multi-stakeholder world, one in which various entities are being compelled to take on a greater role in addressing global challenges. And there are few stakeholders who are being expected to step up more at the moment than business. Companies of all sizes are being asked to embrace a more sustainable business model, namely one that minimizes its negative “impact” on the environment and society and maximizes its positive ones. For example, moves such as Japan’s recent 2050 net zero pledge mean than businesses of all sizes will need to take steps to reduce their carbon emissions. We’ve already seen Apple’s promise to achieve 100% carbon neutrality across its entire supply chain by 2030. Others will need to take similarly bold steps.

This growing importance of impact is a sign that we are in the early stages of recalibrating how we define business value. While financial strength will always be important, there is a growing belief that companies that don’t pay attention to their environment and societal impact, as well as their own governance, are, in fact, putting their success at risk.

Image credit: 401(K) 2012 via Flickr
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic

The impact revolution coming to tech

Until recently, this has largely been a publicly listed company phenomenon, with tech startup ecosystems generally being left outside of this debate. But now, it’s coming to tech with full force. While the ESG spotlight was first shown on Big Tech, startups, VCs and other ecosystem players are starting to be scrutinized on sustainability factors as never before. But what do innovators and their investors need to be most aware of? Here are some thoughts on how this trend is changing the game for the two core players of the tech ecosystem – VCs and startups:

VCs

Adoption of sustainability-oriented principles and practices has been spotty, to say the least, across venture capital. While private equity firms have made strides integrating ESG in recent years and, in some cases, even developing specific impact investment funds (see TPG’s Rise Fund), venture capital funds have been slow to come on-board. European VCs have perhaps seen the best progress to date, with funds like Idinvest/Eurazeo, Atomico, and Balderton being early movers on ESG or making sustainability commitments. More recently, the US venture capital space has seen an uptick in thematic funds around topics such as climate and diversity. Finally, stalwart funds like Sequoia have announced that they are actively investing in sustainability, especially in climate tech. Yet, it’s clear that this is only the beginning and that the VC community still has a ways to go. Nevertheless, there are three key reasons that we should see an acceleration in this area in the coming years:

  1. Risk mitigation: With an increasingly challenging regulatory environment for finance and tech alike, a growing conscious consumer movement, and shifting norms around what constitutes “good business,” it’s an increasingly risky proposition to invest in startups without considering how they’re approaching these issues. Using ESG criteria (at a minimum) to screen investment opportunities gives investors a tangible way to help de-risk their portfolios.
  2. Limited partner (LP) interests: While these entities are still looking for market leading returns from funds, sustainability is also quickly moving up their agendas. In some instances, it’s their stakeholders (shareholders, customers, contributors) who are demanding it. In others, such as family offices, individuals want to reflect their values in how they invest. In the future, it may be difficult for VCs to raise funds from reputable LPs if they don’t integrate ESG principles and practices in their fund operations and investment activities.
  3. Opportunities: Earlier tech waves addressed many first-level problems, such as connectivity, efficiency, and information discovery; the next wave will tackle much more fundamental societal and environmental challenges. Future value is going to be driven by innovations that solve these complex issues.
Image credit: nosita via Pixabay

Startups

When an entrepreneur is trying to build a company with limited resources, generally, the last thing they’re thinking about is the impact their product will have on the environment or society. Understandably, their focus tends to be more towards business fundamentals, such as product-market fit or customer acquisition. However, startups are not building their businesses in a bubble. Many of the societal and environmental dynamics mentioned in this article will impact startups’ success going forward. While there are many more support systems now to help startups scale (funding, training, etc.), the environment they are operating in is, in many ways, more complex and competitive than the one faced by their peers merely a decade ago. And this has been even further complicated by the pandemic. What can startups do to prepare and succeed in this new paradigm?

  1. Anticipate risks and prepare accordingly: Startups today are innovating in areas that their predecessors shunned for fear of overregulation or sheer complexity. While this is commendable, it also presents them with new risks. Taking an approach early on which considers societal and environmental impact will help them avoid potential problems down the road. For example, are entrepreneurs innovating with AI considering potential problems around biases or possible nefarious use of the services they develop? What actions can they take to avoid these potential challenges? Or, are food delivery services thinking about fair labor practices or the environmental impact of mounds of plastic packaging waste? Getting ahead of these issues early on can help avoid potential problems, regulatory, reputational, or otherwise, down the road.
  2. Respond to investors’ shifting priorities: Naturally, as VCs increasingly embrace sustainability, they are going to look to startups that do the same or are willing to do so. As VCs make commitments, they need to demonstrate to their LPs and other stakeholders that their fund and portfolio companies are moving in lock step. It goes without saying that this is a big ask of many startups. To make this work, VCs will need to support startups differently and, often, more proactively than they have in the past.
  3. Lean in to sustainable innovation: Encouragingly, there are endless opportunities for startups in areas like climate tech, food tech, sustainable fashion, fintech, and healthcare. Startups that build products and services that can do things like efficiently and inexpensively capture and store carbon, significantly reduce inequalities in healthcare access, or shore up the resilience of our food systems, will be the next generation of winners. And with burgeoning success stories like Northvolt, Impossible Foods, and Japan’s own Euglena, there’s evidence that this is already coming to pass. Working today on opportunities that drive positive impact will pay dividends tomorrow.

You can’t coach ambition

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This guest post is authored by Mark Bivens. Mark is a Silicon Valley native and former entrepreneur, having started three companies before “turning to the dark side of VC.” He is a venture capitalist that travels between Paris and Tokyo (aka the RudeVC). You can read more on his blog at http://rude.vc or follow him @markbivens. The Japanese translation of this article is available here. Red Auerbach — winning basketball coach of the Boston Celtics for 9 NBA championships in the 1950s and 60s, famously remarked that, “You can’t coach height.” He made the statement in response to a reporter‘s question on why he drafted somebody who turned out to be a fantastic player but didn’t possess much in the way of basketball skills other than being super tall. In other words, some favorable basketball attributes can be coached: passing, dribbling, shooting free throws, making plays, rebounding shots, etc. whereas other attributes can never be taught, namely a player’s height.  I think the equivalent of this expression for entrepreneurs would be, “You can’t coach ambition.” This expression came to mind again as I witness reverberations in the Silicon Valley echo chamber about the recent funding round of Clubhouse.  The brouhaha…

mark-bivens_portraitThis guest post is authored by Mark Bivens. Mark is a Silicon Valley native and former entrepreneur, having started three companies before “turning to the dark side of VC.” He is a venture capitalist that travels between Paris and Tokyo (aka the RudeVC). You can read more on his blog at http://rude.vc or follow him @markbivens. The Japanese translation of this article is available here.


Image credit: PhotoFond

Red Auerbach — winning basketball coach of the Boston Celtics for 9 NBA championships in the 1950s and 60s, famously remarked that, “You can’t coach height.” He made the statement in response to a reporter‘s question on why he drafted somebody who turned out to be a fantastic player but didn’t possess much in the way of basketball skills other than being super tall. In other words, some favorable basketball attributes can be coached: passing, dribbling, shooting free throws, making plays, rebounding shots, etc. whereas other attributes can never be taught, namely a player’s height. 
I think the equivalent of this expression for entrepreneurs would be, “You can’t coach ambition.”

This expression came to mind again as I witness reverberations in the Silicon Valley echo chamber about the recent funding round of Clubhouse. 

The brouhaha relates to Clubhouse’s Series A fundraising of $10 million from Andreessen Horowitz, which was accompanied by $2 million worth of secondary cash paid directly to the Clubhouse founders.

Perhaps it’s because I spent more of my investing career in Europe then in Silicon Valley, but for me, creative deal structures like this one — even if it looks egregious to some on the surface — do not strike me as eye-popping. 

Although I would not classify most European founders as underprivileged, very few come from positions of extreme wealth. Most of the entrepreneurs I have encountered had been toiling away for years with modest wages (especially on a net basis after significant taxes and social charges), and limited capital gains from other sources such as stock market appreciation. Functioning universal healthcare coverage provides a safety net on the downside, in contrast with the U.S., making entrepreneurship accessible to a wider range of economic classes.

For these and historically cultural reasons, the go-for-broke mentality is far less prevalent among European entrepreneurs.

So I’ve been no stranger to structuring deals with a secondary component for the founders who have been plugging away for years with relatively little concrete monetary value to show for it. No, I have not offered secondaries of $2 million — closer to an order of magnitude smaller — nor have I offered them on Series A rounds, only at later stages. However, I’ve done them on multiple occasions.

In some cases, the secondaries have worked out superbly well, removing obstacles for founders to strive for aggressive growth. On other occasions, they provided little or no improvement, and have sometimes even backfired by misaligning the interests in the cap table.

It was only after numerous experiences with these that I realized the importance of controlling for another variable: the intrinsic ambition of the founder.

If a founder’s self-imposed restraint stemmed from external factors, for instance family responsibilities, alleviating such burdens with a small secondary payout has proven wildly effective. If the risk aversion originated from within, on the other hand, the hoped-for benefits of a secondary structure never seemed to materialize.

Ambition is raw. It sits independently of the support I might provide to portfolio companies, either directly or by finding people who do. Company structuring, financial management, marketing, pitching, fundraising, negotiating, recruiting, exit positioning, etc. all of these skills can be fostered and encouraged.

10 crisis initiatives for startups

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This guest post is authored by Mark Bivens. Mark is a Silicon Valley native and former entrepreneur, having started three companies before “turning to the dark side of VC.” He is a venture capitalist that travels between Paris and Tokyo (aka the RudeVC). You can read more on his blog at http://rude.vc or follow him @markbivens. The Japanese translation of this article is available here. A fair bit of ink has been spilled with VC recommendations to startups on how to best confront the business challenges catalyzed by the covid-19 crisis. In fact, it’s practically compulsory writing for any VC on social media these days. Rather than write yet another of one of those posts, I’m taking a different angle. The preponderance of the various VC tips permeating the ether these days — worthwhile as they are — tend to be fairly prescriptive in nature. So, in complement to all that good wisdom out there and rather than preach from the perch of my Peloton®, I’m going to highlight some best practices from the people on the front lines of this economic crisis, i.e. our portfolio company CEOs. Here is an extract of some of the most concrete and actionable…

mark-bivens_portrait

This guest post is authored by Mark Bivens. Mark is a Silicon Valley native and former entrepreneur, having started three companies before “turning to the dark side of VC.” He is a venture capitalist that travels between Paris and Tokyo (aka the RudeVC). You can read more on his blog at http://rude.vc or follow him @markbivens. The Japanese translation of this article is available here.


Image credit: Pxfuel

A fair bit of ink has been spilled with VC recommendations to startups on how to best confront the business challenges catalyzed by the covid-19 crisis. In fact, it’s practically compulsory writing for any VC on social media these days.

Rather than write yet another of one of those posts, I’m taking a different angle. The preponderance of the various VC tips permeating the ether these days — worthwhile as they are — tend to be fairly prescriptive in nature. So, in complement to all that good wisdom out there and rather than preach from the perch of my Peloton®, I’m going to highlight some best practices from the people on the front lines of this economic crisis, i.e. our portfolio company CEOs. Here is an extract of some of the most concrete and actionable ideas which have been initiated by a variety of our investments. [I have restricted my own comments to brackets.] Hopefully some of these initiatives will inspire ideas that are more directly relevant to your own unique situations.

  1. Anticipating that things will get worse before they get better. Erring on the side of abundant caution and taking measures early even if they seem excessively prudent.
  2. Holding candid discussions with their investors, early and often, to find out whether they have the capacity, the will, and the dry powder to provide some bridge financing in the event that things do get worse.
  3. Providing their employees the tools to work from home. Not all of them rock the same home office crib that the CEO does. Those who could afford it have given their employees a “work-from-home stipend” to enable them to purchase the equipment they need to be productive. [Not only is the productivity boost covering the expense, but I have a feeling that the staff loyalty they generate from moves like this will probably prove priceless
  4. Designating to each employee a special additional role during the crisis [hat tip to Eric Ries for this idea], for example
  • A person who contacts suppliers, customers, and partners purely to check in on their well-being
  • A point person to keep up with the evolving dynamic of local government subsidies for which the startup might be eligible
  • A person who posts any good news on a regular basis about covid-19 developments
  • A person to ensure there’s adequate supply of hand sanitizer in the office
  • [an initiative like this brings several benefits: it gives every employee a clear responsibility; it aligns employees with the problem-solving mission; it relieves much of the burden on the CEO (if you haven’t learned how to delegate yet, now would be a good time, and quick); it enhances productivity; etc.]
  1. Giving themselves some time (usually two weeks) to brainstorm with all staff on how to creatively generate more short-term revenue, free of ideological mindset constraints. [if you’re product purists, could you provide some services ? are there any work-for-hire opportunities ? could you monetize some of your company’s talents or technologies in a different way ?]
  2. Over-communicating with transparency and candor to all employees about the potential financial challenges
  3. Leading by example first, by postponing 100% of their own salary and then asking employees to postpone 50% of theirs. In the event that layoffs are absolutely necessary, finding the most humane manner possible to do them [extending option exercise periods, offering to re-hire, granting use of facilities, etc.]
  4. Postponing fees to external board members [exploring the postponement of such fees could hardly be considered offensive if you have already established a relationship of transparent communication with your board.]
  5. Pursuing every possible government aid available [government-backed loans, partial unemployment subsidies, tax deferrals, etc.]
  6. Generally extending the same level of transparency to their suppliers, sharing openly their financial predicament and exploring potential flexibility in payment terms [I know of one startup who told their landlord with sincere apologies that they will temporarily need to stop paying rent for a few months, were prepared to accept the consequences, and genuinely hope that the landlord understands their situation.]

[On a related note, I recall one CFO from a portfolio company in the distant past who found himself forced to navigate crises on almost a bi-annual basis. I’m going to dedicate a whole future post to this individual one day. One of his most creative ideas when in a cash crunch was to approach each supplier with a proposition of flipping a coin: heads he pays them within 30 days; tails he postpones payment for 60 days. I love trotting out this anecdote every time a startup manager tells me that they’re in a cash crisis and they’ve tried absolutely everything. “Have you really tried everything? If you haven’t flipped coins with your suppliers yet, then you haven’t tried absolutely everything,“ I like to respond.]

A healthy company culture will be one of your greatest assets to navigate this crisis. Leverage it.

Japan Embassy in Bangkok, CP Group help Japan startups digitalize Thai conglomerates

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This article was rearranged by our editorial from the original by Momoko Furukawa, Assistant to Executive/PR at TalentEx. TalentEX is a Bangkok-based startup offering a media outlet and an online platform for recruitment and human resources. All the photos in this article were taken by Tomohiro Ueno, Corporate Planning at TalentEx. See our past coverage to learn more about TalentEx. See the original story in Japanese. The Japanese Embassy in Thailand together with the CP Group (Charoen Pokphand Group), operating 7/11 convenience stores in Thailand and also owning local mobile telco giant True, held a Demo Day and matchmaking event called Rock Thailand in March, aiming to help Japanese startups and Thai conglomerates to work together. The event is part of the Open Innovation Columbus (OIC) initiative, which promotes strategic alliances between Japanese startups and Thai conglomerates. With regards to OIC-related events, this follows the DX Summit held by the Japanese Embassy in Thailand last October. The majority of Thai conglomerates do not reap the benefits of a digital economy. In Japan, large companies are moving to start digital transformation (DX) by collaborating with startups (it’s so called ‘open innovation’), while in Thailand, due to the nature of the verticals…

This article was rearranged by our editorial from the original by Momoko Furukawa, Assistant to Executive/PR at TalentEx. TalentEX is a Bangkok-based startup offering a media outlet and an online platform for recruitment and human resources.

All the photos in this article were taken by Tomohiro Ueno, Corporate Planning at TalentEx.

See our past coverage to learn more about TalentEx.


See the original story in Japanese.

The Japanese Embassy in Thailand together with the CP Group (Charoen Pokphand Group), operating 7/11 convenience stores in Thailand and also owning local mobile telco giant True, held a Demo Day and matchmaking event called Rock Thailand in March, aiming to help Japanese startups and Thai conglomerates to work together. The event is part of the Open Innovation Columbus (OIC) initiative, which promotes strategic alliances between Japanese startups and Thai conglomerates. With regards to OIC-related events, this follows the DX Summit held by the Japanese Embassy in Thailand last October.

The majority of Thai conglomerates do not reap the benefits of a digital economy. In Japan, large companies are moving to start digital transformation (DX) by collaborating with startups (it’s so called ‘open innovation’), while in Thailand, due to the nature of the verticals that local startups specialize in, DX through open innovation will likely still take time.

In response to this, OIC selected a team of 10 Japanese startups that lead verticals likely to be useful for DX (AI, robotics, IoT, logistics), and that are particularly interested in advancing into Southeast Asia, including Thailand, and invited them to Bangkok. This is an attempt at targeting cross-border open innovation and focuses on using the power of Japanese startups to foster DX for Thai conglomerates.

Representatives from the 10 Japanese startups pitched in front of top executives from major corporations such as CP Group’s CEO Suphachai Chearavanont, the Petroleum Authority of Thailand (PTT), major retailer TCC known for its beer brewing brand Chang, Kasikornbank, the Thai royal family-backded SCG (Siam Cement Group), and the big name in hospital management BDMS (Bangkok Dusit Medical Service). Individual consultations between representatives were also made with the goal of establishing cooperative relationships starting with a PoC (proof of concept).

A committee made up of 10 venture capitalists and media personnel from Japan who have deep knowledge of the startup scenes in Southeast Asia, including Thailand, selected the startups to participate in this first edition of the event.

The following is an introduction of the participating startups. They are introduced in the order that they pitched. The collaboration specifics were not disclosed except between the Thai conglomerates and startups, so we introduce only the comments from participating startups.

PKSHA Technology

Yugo Takino, VP of Product, PKSHA TEchnology

PKSHA Technology (TSE: 3993) develops algorithm solutions focused on natural language processing, image recognition, machine learning and deep learning technologies. The company also develops function-specific algorithm modules and provides services to use them as core functions/ sub-functions for various software/hardware. Founded by engineers and researchers who conduct algorithm research, approximately 70% of PKSHA’s engineers who have completed doctoral programs make up their team along with a collection of qualified personnel with academic expertise. PKSHA said that their resources could be used to provide services adapted to each industry such as weather and equipment maintenance.

ABEJA

Naoki Tonogi, Managing Director, ABEJA Singapore

ABEJA provides all kinds of solutions for a variety of industries using its core technology, the AI platform “ABEJA Platform”. The company uses deep learning to automatically extract feature values from accumulated big data without human intervention.

Naoki Tonogi, Managing Director of ABEJA Singapore, cited three of ABEJA’s strengths.

  1. ABEJA can provide services for all industrial fields.
  2. The company has developed services internationally, and has already achieved results, especially in Southeast Asia.
  3. In addition to providing solutions with AI, the company produces its own products.

Tonogi shared the following comments regarding the company’s participation in Rock Thailand.

We were able to talk with major conglomerates including CP Group. Companies that we had already talked to said they’d like to work together, and we were able to propose approaches using AI tailored to each task such as smart factories, smart cities, smart stores to the others. Because of the back-up from the Japanese government, it seems possible to create a cooperative system for innovation with the conglomerates in Thailand, rather than receiving a simple project order from them.¥

It’s been about two years since I came to Singapore and Thailand, but over the past year or so the interest of corporate management in AI has greatly increased, and we were able to put together a number of projects with them. Based on the idea central to our company ‘implementing a fruitful world’, we would like to implement a rich society in Thailand for all the people involved in AI.

See also our past articles of ABEJA.

LPixel

Yuki Shimahara, CEO & Founder, LPixel

Spun off from the University of Tokyo, LPixel has a strength in image analysis for life science. The company is developing software and optimizing AI technology for image analysis in life science such as medicine, pharmaceuticals, and agriculture. They continue to research and develop medical image diagnosis support using AI in cooperation with the National Cancer Center Japan and a number of other medical institutions. They have expanded into Cambridge, US to provide global services.

See also:

Skydisc

Yoshihiko Suenaga, Head of Overseas Strategy Division, Skydisc

Skydisc develops IoT sensor devices and services that allows users to analyze the data collected using AI. It has most often been introduced in the manufacturing industry, and contributes to creating smart factories by diagnosing abnormalities in machines, increasing yield rates, and improving the accuracy of inspections.

See also:

Umitron

Masahiko Yamada, Co-founder and Managing Director, Umitron

Umitron is working on solutions for food and environmental issues by using technology for aquaculture. The company has offices in Singapore and Japan and it provides services using IoT, satellite remote sensing, and machine learning. Umitron Cell, a smart feeder recently announced by the company, allows users to feed cultured fish on schedule and monitor their appearance autonomously or remotely.

Masahiro Yamada, Co-founder and Managing Director of Umitron, shared shared the following impressions regarding participation in Rock Thailand.

I’ve participated in many matching events, but I’ve never been to an event that left me so satisfied. Top class executives from the country’s top conglomerates gathered together, the interviews were set up, and I was able to meet the people I wanted to meet, so it was really great.

I was able to talk with nearly all the conglomerates (that participated), and my first order of business is to begin discussions regarding their on-site issues. As far as business partners in Thailand, I expect there is a good chance for collaboration.

See also:

SmartDrive

Retsu Kitagawa, CEO, SmartDrive

Telematic startup SmartDrive provides services to collect travel data from cars and other mobility devices and then visualize and analyze it. Their services include SmartDrive Fleet (real-time vehicle management for corporations), SmartDrive Cars (flat-rate connected cars for personal use), SmartDrive Families (monitoring of the elderly), and Public Service (mapping of dangerous areas and traffic sharing). The company has also focused on developing sensors, including drive recorders, and creating its own route for data acquisition.

See also:

Smart Shopping

Ryosuke Shimohara, VP of B2B Business, Smart Shopping

Smart Shopping is a price comparison site for daily goods and food and serves over 400,000 users. In October of last year, the company launched a new product called SmartMat, an IoT device equipped with weight sensors that enables automatic recurring orders and inventory replenishment for consumables. It is primarily desgined for corporations tand automates the task of always keeping the necessary amount of items that may be easy to forget to order. With Smart Shopping, the pre-consumption weight of the product is stored in the company’s product database and based on regular weight checks asks the user to authorize purchases when the remaining weight is low.

Ryosuke Shimohara, VP of B2B Business, Smart Shopping, shared the following comments about participating in Rock Thailand.

For WHA, a big name in Thai industrial parks and rental warehouses, we were able to propose added value for logistics facilities, solutions for their factory customers, and supply chain optimization using Smartmats. For the CP Group, Singha (beer brand), and Siam Makro (Thailand’s answer to Costco), we were able to propose the introduction of an automatic recurring ordering solution for retail stores using SmartMats. We hope this will lead to the acquisition of large customers when developing business in Thailand, and lead to partnerships in Southeast Asia, including Thailand.

Ground

Takatsugu Kobayashi, Chief Data Officer and Head of Global Innovation, Ground

Ground provides logistics solutions with “Intelligent Logistics” as its company slogan. Starting with picking operations in warehouses, the company has built a platform combining robots and AI software to optimize logistics.

Problems that companies often encounter include too many options for consumers, consumers becoming easily bored, and the inability to detect consumer behavior in advance (such as cancellations). Ground uses machine learning based on a customer database that can identify consumers’ behavior. Then, based on demand forecasts, it predicts the number of products to be made and the number of sales, and aims to improve the efficiency of all logistics operations.

Takatsugu Kobayashi, Chief Data Officer and Head of Global Innovation, Ground shared his impressions of participating in Rock Thailand.

We talked with several conglomerates, but we are especially considering whether we can provide solutions to the CP Group, Kasikornbank, and WHA. We believe that we can accelerate the development of our company’s AI logistics software ‘DyAS’ and aim for early market-in to Thailand.

For startups that offer both hardware and software like ours, both the speed and scale axes are required–more so than regular startups. In terms of business expansion, if you don’t take the three big steps PoV (Proof of Value) > PoC (Proof of Concept) > PoB (Proof of Business), it is very difficult. In that sense, business development in mature markets tends to be expensive for explanation and introduction costs, and startups with weak capital capabilities are likely to struggle.

However, after talking with the representatives from the conglomerates, such concerns have been lowered. I felt like in the current age we cannot compete overseas (especially with Amazon and Alibaba) if we don’t market-in early (in Thailand) and support reverse innovation in Japan.

Souco

Kunehito Nakahara, Founder and CEO, Souco

Souco is a logistics sharing platform that has built an online database of warehouses and matches companies that want to lend warehouses with those that would like to rent them. The company simplified the procedures necessary to complete before using the space and made it easy to begin using warehouses with a “small lot” for a “short period” in 3 days minimum from the application date. Since the service launch, user growth has been steady and registered users have reached more than 300 companies.

See also:

Hacobu

Masaru Sakata, COO, Hacobu

Hacobu offers a shared logistics platform called Movo. Thanks to the cloud and hardware such as the IoT devices managing moving vehicles, the company solves problems like vehicle dispatch (as an integrated logistics management solution, solves the problem of the difficulty of finding trucks to dispatch), operation management (solves the problem of not knowing location information of the trucks), and berth management (solves the problem of using trucks efficiently because of waiting time).

From left: Polapatr Suvarnazorn (SVP, Thai Beverage), Takatsugu Kobayashi (Ground Chief Data Officer and Head of Global Innovation, Ground), Naoki Tonogi (Managing Director, Abeja Singapore)

Following their pitches, there was a networking opportunity where talks about collaborations between Thai conglomerates and Japanese startups were lively. Thai executives also had positive comments to share about joining Rock Thailand.

Pichairat Jiranunrat, Director of Robotics AI & Intelligent Solution at PTT, says:

Thailand has long established good relationships with Japan and Japanese companies, and I think of Japan as a “good friend”. Based on this trust, perhaps we can create something even more new?

I felt that it’s important to incorporate technology (like that introduced today) into our company.

Yojiro Koshi (center), CEO of TalentEX, also also participated in the networking party.

Translated by Amanda Imasaka
Edited by Masaru Ikeda

Japan’s Spectee, news video aggregator for press, ready for North America expansion

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This is a guest post authored by “Tex” Pomeroy. He is a Tokyo-based writer specializing in ICT and high technology. Spectee, at an OrangeFab meetup in Tokyo outlining the program in Asia, noted that from September it will start expanding its presence abroad — most likely in the U.S. which has been the amateur-based newsfeed firm’s largest market. Founder & CEO Kenjiro Murakami worked at a Silicon Valley major prior to starting up Spectee, under a different name. The Tokyo firm is a second batch (the first which covered Japan, Korea and Taiwan) graduate of the accelerator run by the European telecom concern Orange. Spectee will showcase its service at an Austin, Texas confab next month to mark the launch of its active foray into North America. Many competing services are headquartered on this continent. The Japanese startup not only handles copyright management issues for the image data but applies Artificial Intelligence (AI) upon finding and matching the requisite data. It was underscored that by 2020 the Internet will be some 44 ZB (zettabytes) of information floating out on cyberspace, beyond the capacity of a normal human brain alone to thresh through. See also: Japan’s social news aggregator for press…

This is a guest post authored by “Tex” Pomeroy. He is a Tokyo-based writer specializing in ICT and high technology.


Spectee CEO Kenjiro Murakami introduces his service at a recent OrangeFab Asia meet-up.
Image credit: “Tex” Pomeroy

Spectee, at an OrangeFab meetup in Tokyo outlining the program in Asia, noted that from September it will start expanding its presence abroad — most likely in the U.S. which has been the amateur-based newsfeed firm’s largest market. Founder & CEO Kenjiro Murakami worked at a Silicon Valley major prior to starting up Spectee, under a different name.

The Tokyo firm is a second batch (the first which covered Japan, Korea and Taiwan) graduate of the accelerator run by the European telecom concern Orange. Spectee will showcase its service at an Austin, Texas confab next month to mark the launch of its active foray into North America. Many competing services are headquartered on this continent.

The Japanese startup not only handles copyright management issues for the image data but applies Artificial Intelligence (AI) upon finding and matching the requisite data. It was underscored that by 2020 the Internet will be some 44 ZB (zettabytes) of information floating out on cyberspace, beyond the capacity of a normal human brain alone to thresh through.

See also:

Spectee is currently working with Associated Press (AP) among other press organizations to disseminate its visual newsfeed network. Its system is also armed with multiple patents, which is rare for a startup with less than ten years of history, to be applied in expanding into new areas beyond the news field.

In addition to the Spectee talk, OrangeFab outlined its past efforts and announced it was ready to accept applications for the next program term from entrepreneurs. Creww also provided a spiel about the venue it runs (dubbed “docks”), which is a mid-Tokyo open innovation incubation and coworking space near Tokyo Tower, being used for the event series.

Earlier last month, Uzabase — offering the NewsPicks service and tied up with Dow Jones in the U.S. — announced its intention to buy digital-only business news service Quartz from Atlantic Media. Assuming the approximately month-long U.S. government approval goes smoothly, the Tokyo company can expect to be the new Quartz provider.

Nikkei presents AG/SUM 2018 in Central Tokyo with an eye to next year, 2020

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This is a guest post authored by “Tex” Pomeroy. He is a Tokyo-based writer specializing in ICT and high technology. AG/SUM (Agritech Summit) 2018 was presented by Nikkei from June 11 in Tokyo’s Nihombashi area, which from the Edo era has been home to Shinto shrines dedicated to medicinal plants. The district, under redevelopment by Mitsui Fudosan which was a major event sponsor, also has a concentration of pharmaceuticals firms ranging the gamut from Daiichi-Sankyo (with its Kusuri [Medicine] Museum) to Takeda Pharmaceutical’s newly-opened global headquarters building. The three-day event is part of the newly-launched “summit” series run by Nihon Keizai Shimbun, the flagship daily newspaper of the NIKKEI news concern; originally focused on finance and regulation, it is now aiming at such fields as life sciences and transportation, with an eye to the expansion of business activities in reflection of the Rugby World Cup next year in Japan as well as the 2020 Tokyo Olympics/Paralympics. The agriculture-centered event comprised a Symposium, an Exhibition and a Start-up Pitch Run plus a Reverse Pitch, in addition to a Marche where stalls lined the underground passageway leading from the main venues of Nihombashi Life Science Building and Nihombashi Mitsui Hall to the…

This is a guest post authored by “Tex” Pomeroy. He is a Tokyo-based writer specializing in ICT and high technology.


AG/SUM Pitch Run finalists
Image credit: “Tex” Pomeroy

AG/SUM (Agritech Summit) 2018 was presented by Nikkei from June 11 in Tokyo’s Nihombashi area, which from the Edo era has been home to Shinto shrines dedicated to medicinal plants. The district, under redevelopment by Mitsui Fudosan which was a major event sponsor, also has a concentration of pharmaceuticals firms ranging the gamut from Daiichi-Sankyo (with its Kusuri [Medicine] Museum) to Takeda Pharmaceutical’s newly-opened global headquarters building.

The three-day event is part of the newly-launched “summit” series run by Nihon Keizai Shimbun, the flagship daily newspaper of the NIKKEI news concern; originally focused on finance and regulation, it is now aiming at such fields as life sciences and transportation, with an eye to the expansion of business activities in reflection of the Rugby World Cup next year in Japan as well as the 2020 Tokyo Olympics/Paralympics.

The agriculture-centered event comprised a Symposium, an Exhibition and a Start-up Pitch Run plus a Reverse Pitch, in addition to a Marche where stalls lined the underground passageway leading from the main venues of Nihombashi Life Science Building and Nihombashi Mitsui Hall to the nearest railway stations, namely Mitsukoshimae subway station for Ginza and Hanzomon Metro lines as well as the JR Shin-Nihombashi station, nearby Nihombashi Information Center.

AG/SUM Reverse Pitch
Image credit: “Tex” Pomeroy

The Pitch Run was held with 26 participants, in two parts (a.m. and p.m.) on June 12, with the Reverse Pitch being gathered in the early evening of the same day. The competitors vied for the main Nikkei Award while the Mizuho Award (namesake after Mizuho Bank, Mizuho standing for the Japanese phrase meaning plentiful harvest, roughly equivalent to “cornucopia”) was subsidiary. The Reverse Pitch was more of a participant feedback and follow-up session for pitch participants.

The a.m. session judges were Plug and Play Tech Center’s Seena Amidi, World Innovation Lab’s Namiko Kajiwara, Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings’ Uraki Fumiko and Nihon Keizai Shimbun’s Keiichi Murayama while the p.m. judges were Bits x Bites’ Matilda Ho, RocketSpace’s Shaina Silva, Mistletoe’s Eriko Suzuki and euglena’s Akihito Nagata; Mizuho Bank’s Naoto Oohitsu was a judge for both sessions.

Musca CEO Mitsutaka Kushima
Image credit: “Tex” Pomeroy

The joint winners of the Mizuho Award turned out to be three companies, all from Japan – graft biotech outfit Gra & Green, plant factory maker PlantX and insect-tech Musca [“musca” meaning fly in Latin]. The Nikkei award went to the international quartet of U. California Berkeley-affiliated Sugarlogix, Stanford-related Agribody Technologies, vineyard support tech provider Biome Makers and non-fermentation winemaker AVA Winery.

Speaking of wine, along with visitors from Israel (though only contaminant detector manufacturer Inspecto showed up this year, MBR-supported hydroponics firm FreightFarms opting out this year, depriving me of a chance to ask about Kosher foodstuff) and elsewhere in the Middle East (Turkish agro-finance service Tarfin and sensor data processor Tarsens [with NVIDIA backing], where Halal is a huge market), afficianados of the beverage like myself found AVA tech intriguing for such diets.

It is hoped that next year the event can be expanded and brings more general visitors to the Marche and other public outreach aspects – as for example the Turkish start-ups in fact stayed on through Monday after in order to gain more information and further exchange. In addition perhaps more start-up involvement from South American and even Africa, not to mention elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific region, could be possible.

Japan has its successful Unicorn. Next it needs its first Unicorpse.

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This guest post is authored by Mark Bivens. Mark is a Silicon Valley native and former entrepreneur, having started three companies before “turning to the dark side of VC.” He is a venture capitalist that travels between Paris and Tokyo (aka the RudeVC). You can read more on his blog at http://rude.vc or follow him @markbivens. The Japanese translation of this article is available here. Japan witnessed its first successful unicorn take flight this week in the IPO of Mercari. Since its launch in 2013, Mercari has become Japan’s leading online flea market platform, allowing people to buy and sell secondhand items on a smartphone app with a brilliant UX. In just five years, the startup has reached a valuation of $6 billion, the largest IPO for a tech company since Line Corp. went public in July 2016. Hats off to the investors who backed Mercari, especially East Ventures who subscribed to the vision during the company’s seed round. And deep bow to the tireless leadership of Shintaro Yamada and his team at Mercari for your collectively heroic efforts! My hope is that Mercari represents a watershed moment for tech innovation in Japan. I’ve encountered mixed prognostications here in Tokyo…

mark-bivens_portraitThis guest post is authored by Mark Bivens. Mark is a Silicon Valley native and former entrepreneur, having started three companies before “turning to the dark side of VC.” He is a venture capitalist that travels between Paris and Tokyo (aka the RudeVC). You can read more on his blog at http://rude.vc or follow him @markbivens. The Japanese translation of this article is available here.


Image credit: Bakhtiar Zein / 123RF

Japan witnessed its first successful unicorn take flight this week in the IPO of Mercari.
Since its launch in 2013, Mercari has become Japan’s leading online flea market platform, allowing people to buy and sell secondhand items on a smartphone app with a brilliant UX. In just five years, the startup has reached a valuation of $6 billion, the largest IPO for a tech company since Line Corp. went public in July 2016.

Hats off to the investors who backed Mercari, especially East Ventures who subscribed to the vision during the company’s seed round. And deep bow to the tireless leadership of Shintaro Yamada and his team at Mercari for your collectively heroic efforts!

My hope is that Mercari represents a watershed moment for tech innovation in Japan. I’ve encountered mixed prognostications here in Tokyo this week. Some view it as a game-changer. Others remain skeptical, contending that Mercari remains an exception in a culture which stigmatizes failure.

Numerous people in both camps have told me that the absence of unicorns in Japan has been an embarrassment to the world’s third largest economy and former technology powerhouse viewed with intimidation in the West.

True, the U.S., Europe, and China possess herds of tech unicorns. Even today, I would submit that Europe punches above its weight in its proportion of unicorns. As I had explained in a recent interview to ITmedia News, Europe now counts about 30 technology unicorns, over 25% of the U.S. figure, which is impressive given that Europe only receives 1/10th of VC funding with substantially lower fundraising rounds compared to the U.S. As a VC during the breakout years of Europe’s tech sector, I have been fortunate to witness and invest in this magical phase.

And magical it is. The birth of unicorns in Europe has awakened international investors to the Old Continent’s potential. Capital from America and China has found it way into Europe. Now it appears that a few savvy investors from Japan are discovering the potential as well. Perhaps Mercari can unleash a similar stampede.

Granted, the term unicorn is annoyingly overused and increasingly inaccurate. However, investment bankers, research analysts, and investors love it (not to forget tech journalists, of course). Government officials across the globe have also almost universally adopted the unicorn mantra. Some use it as a metric on which to score points in petty rivalries about whose nation boasts the best tech ecosystems. One could also argue that a proliferation of unicorns is a sign of inefficiency in the capital markets.

Although I am hopeful that Japan will produce more tech unicorns in short order, I submit that the real litmus test will come in the form of a more macabre milestone: Japan’s first unicorpse.

Now please don’t misunderstand me. I applaud each and every aspiring unicorn venture, and I wish them no harm. I also salute the as-of-yet unsung heroes: the entrepreneurs who are still struggling out of the spotlight to reach escape velocity. Some of you will hopefully join the unicorn club, whereas many of you will not cross the $1B barrier but still build great companies of lasting value. Just as I wept at the end of Seabiscuit, I would not take pleasure in seeing a bunch of dead unicorn carcasses.

However, although Aileen Lee’s term refers to an arbitrary valuation threshold (remember: $1B is just another number), there is something stratospheric, ostentatious, and memorable about the $1 billion mark. On today’s scales, when you’ve crossed $1B, you’ve made it beyond the big leagues; you’ve become a near-mythical creature.

By the same token, a $1B failure will also be monumental. The topic of faltering unicorns is still a bit taboo, and the projected “dying unicorn lists” are not publicized (I know of one in particular that has recently attracted Japanese VC funding to the surprise of the local insiders).

But make no mistake, there has been and will be more blood. Probably several more unicorpses around the world. Such is the nature of venture building. This is actually a good thing, because global success stories of game-changing disruption cannot exist in an environment devoid of colossal failures.

Japan’s first unicorpse, whenever it happens, will represent a new inflection point. How the community reacts will reveal the true potential of Japan’s innovation ecosystem.