OIST Innovators Society - Global Hands-On VC

Join us for coffee and conversation with the founders and managing partners of Global Hands-On VC (GHOVC) (https://www.ghovc.com/ ), Shri Dodani and Ken Yasunaga.

GHOVC has a proven team of entrepreneurs with operational and investment experience who invest in Japanese technology start-ups and provide hands-on support enhanced by their own experience. They help start-ups to attack global market leveraging network of customers, partners and investors, bring US VC like return (Global market, Global talent, but Japanese technology).

Shri and Ken will give us a casual overview of their experiences and are open to answering any questions that we may have. Please join us in person to meet them over coffee and snacks.

Date: Monday, March 13^th, 2023

Venue: L4F01 (Lab 4, Level F)

Time: 15:00-16:00

These talks are set up to share and learn new concepts that will help motivate and guide us to develop technology that could solve real world problems. So, please feel free to share the events, join in and ask any questions that you may have.

Please feel free to contact Shivani for any questions. Share the word and see you all there!

Bios

Shri Dodani, Founder/Managing Partner

Shri Dodani is a veteran executive of the high tech and communications industries. Shri has specialized in engineering, sales and marketing, at major systems and software companies. Prior to founding GHOVC, he was involved in various start-ups from incubation to high growth, successful companies. Shri was the president & CEO at StrataLight (now part of Lumentum), VxTel, a Silicon Valley Voice-over-IP silicon and software start-up (acquired by Intel). Before VxTel, Shri was the vice president of Engineering and Operations, at Carrier Access Corp. (IPO: CACS and now part of Dell), with responsibility for engineering, product development, manufacturing and market introduction activities. He also served as an executive with major companies such as Nortel and Alcatel/Nokia. Shri is an active strategic advisor to start-ups in diverse fields, such as: Virident (acquired by WD), Swift Navigation and Revvo, Inc. Shri also serves as CEO of Vera.  The aggregate corporate value of those start-up companies he managed exceeds $3 billion.  He has a B.S. in Physics and Math, M.S. in Computer Science and MS in Business Administration.

Ken Yasunaga, Founder/Managing Partner

Before founding GHOVC, he was a Managing Director at Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ), a Japanese government fund with $21B under management.   Ken was also a Co-founder and Managing Partner of EntrepiaVentures between 1999 and 2013. His venture capital experience includes 9 years in US and 11 years in Japan, investing to technology focused early stage start-up companies.  Ken also served as a director of Japan Venture Capital Association (JVCA), Chairman of Open Innovation Committee and now he serves as a chair of Global sub-committee.  He was named as the first “Fellow” by JVCA.  He also had multiple advisory roles about the Japanese venture eco-system for the Japanese government including Cabinet Office, Ministry of Economy and Ministry of Education. Ken started his career at Nissho Iwai, a Japanese trading and investing company. While at Nissho Iwai's IT division, he managed the planning and execution of $500M+ investments in IT related companies.   He has a B.A. in Psychology and MBA.