GUV Powerlist 2018: #24 Kotaro Yamagishi

When Kotaro Yamigishi became the founding CEO of Keio Innovation Initiative (KII), the university venture fund of Keio University, in December 2015, he already commanded significant influence in the Japanese ecosystem thanks to his co-founding of internet company Gree in 2004.

Yamigishi retains a seat on Gree’s board of directors, having served as executive vice-president until September 2014 and then vice-chairman until September 2015. Gree posted net sales of ¥77.9bn ($685m) in its latest financial year.

His motivation to move into university venturing stemmed from the tantalising possibility of helping create new spinouts in an environment that had struggled to achieve just this. Yamigishi told GUV that before KII was set up, the university supported just 13 startups through licensing deals rather than taking equity in spinouts.

KII has the necessary firing power to make an impact – its first fund closed within just six months at $40m, proving just how hungry investors were for opportunities arising out of Keio. The fund had 13 portfolio companies by the end of August, and while it has not yet achieved an exit, it is still early days.

To be eligible for investment, companies must be commercialising research from Keio University, conducting joint research or utilising the results of joint research, or have Keio University researchers on the management and R&D team.

That is not to say that Yamigishi has not faced challenges – one of these, he told GUV, was that “it is becoming more difficult to invest in good startups with a reasonable valuation” due to more capital becoming available and investors fighting each other for the chance to back companies.

But Yamigishi remains optimistic, saying his ambition was to invest and grow truly innovative and influential companies and to “keep encouraging students and faculty by introducing role models and teaching skills related to startups, such as finance, legal and marketing”.

KII is focusing its investments on sectors including the internet of things, artificial intelligence, big data, robotics, digital health, bioinformatics and biopharmaceuticals – providing capital from seed all the way through growth stage.

KII also supports the ecosystem through related activities. Yamagishi, for example, has been president of the jury responsible for the Sponsored Entrepreneurship Award at Keio Medical School and has been a guest lecturer for three entrepreneurship courses at Keio University as well as one course at Digital Hollywood University.

Yamagishi has also been a member of the open innovation committee of the Japan Venture Capital Association and is preparing a university venturing symposium with the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology to be held early next year.

Keio Innovation Initiative’s portfolio includes CureApp, a medical treatment app developer, which raised $14m from KII in March this year. The deal also attracted several corporates – conglomerate Itochu’s corporate venturing unit Itochu Technology Ventures and life insurance provider Dai-ichi Life.

Japan and Keio University may be relative newcomers to university venture funds, but with people like Yamagishi they will catch up before long.