See the original story in Japanese.

Kazuhiro Aoyagi, the founder and CEO of Ignition Point, announced the establishment of a startup fund called BlueGoats Capital today. The fund size is set to be 300 to 500 million yen (about $2.7 million to $4.5 million). It will offers 1 to 50 million yen (about $8,900 to $450,000) per investment in Japanese startups in their pre-seed or seed round.  Additionally, it will also introduce Japanese large funds to foreign startups seeking series B funding and join the round as a minority investor. The firm targets so-called ‘XTech (cross-tech) Field’, which applies new technologies into conventional real businesses.

Obviously named after the founder’s name – Aoyagi consisting of Ao (blue) and Yagi (goats), the fund was also influenced by the English words of ‘Greatest of All Time’. He had been giving advice to entrepreneurs about incorporation or scaling-up of their business. In these processes, he has sometimes invested as an angel investor in some of them out of those like Synapse, the developer of the platform driving potential customers to online travel agencies.  But he finally decided to expand his investment activity by forming the fund.

Ignition Point had found various kinds of business in a short period; the Secual smart security startup, the LEARNie online English conversation lesson for kids, the Pontely free DNA test for pet shop dogs, and the DANX on-demand eating and drinking service using food trucks. BlueGoats has no capital relationship with Ignition Point, but Aoyagi’s deep insight and experience about startups and business management will be surely shared with the firm’s portfolio companies.

BlueGoats Capital says that it may make Ignition Point’s office space Spark 2045 or the Point Edge creative studio in Shibuya available to the new fund’s portfolio companies.

Translated by Taijiro Takeda
Edited by Masaru Ikeda