mark bivens
Overheard in Tokyo: “An invitation to the Shizen Capital bonenkai is the hottest ticket in town!” Sincere thank you to all LPs and Founders. You are our raison d’être! #ShizenCapital #WeBackNonConformists The post Shizen Capital Bonenkai 2023 appeared first on Rude VC.
mark bivens
W. David Marx 氏によるスタートアップのためのPR戦略について（11/30(木)開催） 前回に続き、定員を超える参加者をお迎えし自然キャピタル主催のワークショップを無事終了しました。元グーグルコミュニケーションズのシニア・ディレクターで、現在はモダン企画の代表を務めるW・デイビット・マルクス氏に深く感謝致します。デイビッド氏は、著しく変化するメディア環境における、スタートアップのコミュニケーションのあり方とPR戦略について、実用的なアドバイスを提供してくださいました。 本ワークショップを運営してくれた同僚の Mai Iida、ありがとうございました！ The post...
mark bivens
日本におけるスタートアップ・エコシステムの構築という話題になると、私はフランスのイノベーション・ルネッサンスの話をするのが好きだ。 この話を聞いたことがある人もいるだろうが、日本がスタートアップ・ネーションというアジェンダを追求する上で、貴重なロードマップを提供してくれるからだ。...
mark bivens
Today marks a milestone for Shizen Capital which warrants a moment of celebration. In May, we introduced the Sprout GP-in-Training program to play our small part in combating the pervasive diversity problem in VC in Japan. We evaluated several impressive candidates over the summer, and last month...
mark bivens
第1回： Alexey Komissaruk によるグロースエンジニアリングについて（10月20日(金）開催） スタートアップ向けのグロースエンジニアリングについて講演してくださったAlexey Komissaruk に深く感謝いたします。 Alexey 氏は、世界的テクノロジー企業のグロースエンジニアリングをリードした数々の成功体験から以下の興味深い洞察を共有してくださいました。 自然キャピタルワークショップのコーディネートに尽力してくれた Mai Iida に心より感謝いたします。 The post 自然キャピタル主催のワークショップ（シリーズ） appeared first on...
mark bivens
Welcome Mayumi Wakebe into the Shizen capital team ! Just prior to the summer we announced our new Sprout initiative at Shizen Capital. Our hypothesis was that female venture capitalists were far too scarce in Japan, and not for lack of talent. We believe that diversity in venture capital teams...
mark bivens
Today I spoke with a delegation of European family offices accompanied by Japan’s best cross-border M&A and startup attorney. The theme of our presentation was that Japan has reached an inflection point, that the country’s decades of digital dormancy have tipped back into a digital...
mark bivens
We’ve observed an unmistakable slowdown in venture investing in Japan this year. I expect lower metrics on the 2023 VC Radar vs. the 2022 edition (re-printed below). Now for the good news: we have not slowed down our investing activity at Shizen Capital. I expect that we’ll still invest in around...
mark bivens
In the south of France this weekend we were graced with a clear view of the Perseid meteor shower in the midnight sky. Within an hour of watching the Perseids, however, we witnessed a once-in-a-lifetime luxury: a comet. My first reaction was that we were observing SpaceX’s Starlink. Yet the object...
mark bivens
When the topic comes up of building the startup ecosystem in Japan, I like to tell the story of the French Innovation Renaissance. Some of you have heard the story before, but I’ll recap because it provides a valuable road map for Japan in its pursuit of its Startup Nation agenda Two decades ago,...
mark bivens
フランスは、世界で最も活気のあるスタートアップのエコシステムを維持するという野心を縮小させる気配はない。先週パリで開催された VivaTech カンファレンスで、フランスのマクロン大統領は、TIBI の延長を発表した。このイニシアチブは、金融機関のパートナーに60億米ドルを VC 資金に振り向けるよう促すことによって、3年間でフランスのスタートアップに300億米ドルの資金を供給することに成功した。 金融機関がアンカー LP として VC ファンドを支援すると、好循環の乗数効果が発生し、VC ファンドは他の LP からより多くの資金を調達することができるようになる。TIBI...
mark bivens
France shows no signs of throttling back its ambition to maintain one of the world’s most vibrant startup ecosystems. At the VivaTech conference in Paris last week, French president Emmanuel Macron announced an extension of TIBI, an initiative which successfully catalyzed $30 billion of funding...
mark bivens
Lack of diversity in the venture capital business is a problem worldwide. As readers of my blog know from my past tirades, I believe that this pernicious issue negatively impacts VC fund returns, impedes female and other under-represented entrepreneurs, stifles the health of a region’s startup...
mark bivens
直近6ヶ月の間に、私たちは特に注目していた、あるスタートアップへの投資を断念せざるを得なくなり、2つ目の件についても同じ理由から同様の事態をかろうじて回避した。 その理由は、投資プロセスにおけるデューデリジェンスの段階にあった。 デューデリジェンスという言葉は、創業者にとっては誤解を招きやすい。VC の中でも、この用語の使い方はさまざまだ。ある VC...
mark bivens
Over the past 6 months we were forced to bow out of an investment in a startup on which we were particularly keen, and we barely averted a similar situation on a second one, both for the same reason. The hang-up came in the due diligence phase of our investment process. The term due diligence […]...
mark bivens
With First Republic Bank once again teetering on the brink of collapse, I found the timing opportune to share a metaphor I recently conveyed to a friend who was asking about fractional reserve banking. Depositing your cash in a bank is like handing your car keys to the valet parking attendant at a...
mark bivens
One key component of our investment thesis at Shizen Capital is our view on exit opportunities for early-stage startups in Japan. We believe that Japan has now reached an inflection point, and that corporate M&A for Japanese startups is poised to go intergalactic. Historically, an IPO has been...
mark bivens
自然キャピタル では、日本のアーリーステージ・スタートアップのイグジットに関する見解を、投資方針の重要な構成要素の一つとしている。我々は、日本が今、変曲点に達し、日本のスタートアップの M&A は銀河系に向かう準備ができていると考えている。 歴史的に見ると、IPO は日本の VC...
bgurley
In his recent bankruptcy proceeding filing, John Ray III, the new CEO and Chief Restructuring Officer at FTX, minced no words: I have over 40 years of legal and restructuring experience. I have been the Chief Restructuring Officer or Chief Executive Officer in several of the largest corporate...
Adam Nash
Figma’s first conference, Config 2020. On June 25, 2013, Dylan Field, one of my favorite interns from LinkedIn dropped by Wealthfront headquarters in Palo Alto to catch up and get some advice about his new startup, Figma. At the time, I was up to ears with work as the new CEO, trying to sell...
Aamir Virani's Homepage
I write new articles and publish them to Substack if you want an easy way to keep up. I hope you’ll subscribe! Read more product and company-building articles TLDR Before investing in VC funds, you need to understand the money (so you can make more). Before joining a VC firm, you need to...
Adam Nash
In 2020, I set off to build a new company. At the time, I never would have imagined that we’d end up building one during the largest pandemic in a century. Lao Tzu said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and I count myself fortunate to have made the best first step...
bgurley
“As they say in poker, ‘If you’ve been in the game 30 minutes and you don’t know who the patsy is, you’re the patsy.‘” Warren Buffet, 1997 Marketing 101: Customers love free stuff. As a result, it is a common marketing practice to offer things “for free” in order to impact customer behavior or...
bgurley
If you are looking past or through Covid — and why not, all of Wall Street is — the topic du jour in Silicon Valley is Special Purpose Acquisition Companies, or SPACs. SPACs are all the rage, and everybody and their brother have either raised one or are talking about raising one. What are they,...
bgurley
(*) Benchmark is/was an investor in companies labeled with the asterisk. In 1776, Adam Smith released his magnum opus, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, in which he outlined his fundamental economic theories. Front and center in the book — in fact in Book 1, Chapter 1...
Adam Nash
Every time I go to the CODE Conference, I learn something new. There is something about watching some of the most prominent technology executives and founders responding to questions from talented journalists that gets me thinking. Four years ago, I wrote about the transition technology CEOs...
bgurley
The subject of the “consumerization of healthcare” has been around for many years. Most frequently people use this phrase in association with personal technology devices (heart-monitors, exercise accessories, sleep monitors, etc) that allow consumers to take direct control of their health...
Adam Nash
As the father of young children, I can tell you that there is a special place in my heart for restaurants that provide puzzles and crayons for small children to pass the time. On a recent trip out to The Counter in Mountain View, Jordan (who is 8) was really struggling with a large maze puzzle on...