Team
Team
Managing Director
Takuya Takagi is an accomplished professional and currently serves as Senior Managing Director at NTT DOCOMO Ventures, Inc. With a strong background in telecommunications and technology, he leads venture capital investments and plays a crucial role in driving strategic growth. Takuya's expertise spans 5G, IoT, and corporate sustainability activities. He gained valuable insights and leadership skills through the prestigious MIT MBA program and earned a Sustainability Certificate from MIT, further enhancing his ability to drive sustainable innovation. His appointment as Senior Managing Director further solidifies his reputation as a visionary leader, capable of guiding investments and fostering growth in cutting-edge startups.
Managing Director
Christopher is a venture capital professional focused on investments in B2B, intelligent systems, big data, IoT and other related areas. He brings a mix of banking, venture capital, and operational experience working at several early-stage technology companies. Chris has spent his entire career in the venture capital ecosystem and has experience sourcing and evaluating investments in companies and funds, and in managing transactions and business development initiatives.
Chris started his career managing investments in venture capital and private equity for
Limited Partners like CalPERS and Oak Hill, and worked as a placement agent and secondary market advisor at Probitas Partners (closed $340m in secondary transactions and raised several funds for top-tier VCs). Chris was later a Co-founder and CEO of an enterprise communication and intelligent systems startup, and worked for several VC-backed, Y-Combinator and TechStars companies in Business Development, Sales and Product Strategy. He also worked at Morgan Stanley and Xpert Financial, sourcing and evaluating numerous technology companies for investment.
Chris has a BA in Economics and International Relations from the University of California, Davis and a certificate from the National University of Singapore in East Asian Economic Studies.
Managing Director
Neil leads the team responsible for investments and business development. Neil focuses on stage agnostic investments in cloud, IOT, and e-commerce. Neil led Docomo’s investments in Centrify, Muzy, Nextbit, Anfacto, Influitive and Nok Nok Labs. His current investments also include Couchbase, Radar, and Zippin. He was also involved in Docomo’s prior investment in Mist Systems which was acquired by Juniper and Coinbase which completed a significant IPO in 2021.
Prior to Docomo, Neil spent 6 years building Bay Partners Software as a Service and digital media practices. As a General Partner he led the firm’s early investments in Eloqua which was acquired by Oracle after going public in 2012 and Cornerstone onDemand another IPO. Cornerstone (CSOD) is the leader and most valuable company in the talent management space. Neil served as a board director for Cornerstone onDemand, Like.com (acquired by Google), Eventful (acquired by CBS), LiveMedia and Hiplogic (acquired by Zynga).
Before venture capital, Neil spent 10 years as a product executive in technology companies of all sizes. Neil was part of the founding team of Afara Websystems which was acquired by Sun Microsystems. Afara's technology is the foundation of a multi-billion server product line at Oracle. Neil led product teams at Good Technology, RealNetworks and Sun Microsystems where he launched several new products. He began his career as a consultant with Accenture and IBM.
Neil has a BS in Systems Engineering from the University of Waterloo and an MBA from Stanford University.
Manager
Yurie is responsible for investments and business development in VR/XR, AI, workinnovation and entertainment.
She has nearly 10 years of experience in planning AI/chatbot/IoT/fintech consumer services from PoC to launch.
Prior to becoming an investor in the Bay Area, She was a product leader on a big 100+ person project where She planned and developed AI/chatbot services while collaborating with the planning and development teams. She had over 10 million users and were featured in the media and on television.
She also planned PFM and IoT services, which received media coverage and other attention.
Prior to that, she was a mobile application related to customer support and won a departmental award for increasing the number of users sevenfold.
She has worked as a planning specialist in various areas of services.
Yurie has a master's degree in Informatics from Tokyo Denki University.
Manager
Masahiro Inoue is a Manager on the Business Development & Investment team in Silicon Valley Branch. He started his career as an AI software engineer in DOCOMO R&D and built a proactive support system based on Natural Language processing. Then he worked for Evernote corporation in Silicon Valley as a Marketing Data Analyst/Partnership&Community marketer. After one year of experience in Evernote, he joined us to help startup growth from his background knowledge and empowered the Japanese startup ecosystem by collaborating with startup ecosystem stakeholders. He also worked for a startup as a data analyst in parallel. He is now engaged in creating business collaboration with startups in the U.S and NTT Gr, and investing startups.
＜Current business＞
・ Creation of collaboration between startups and NTT Group
・ Startup investment
Manager
Yuuki Teranishi is a Manager on the Business Development & Investment team in Silicon Valley Branch.
He started his career as an NW engineer in NTTDOCOMO, where he gained notable experience working with stationary wireless devices and development of comprehensive business plans and strategic initiatives for the company's overall network services.
He also played a crucial role in the HR department by implementing a new HR system, initiating public recruitment measures, and strategizing a global HR policy.
Manager
Harue joined NTT DOCOMO Ventures from April 2024.
She started her carrier in enterprise sales promotion of ICT solutions using innovative technology such as 5G and XR. Then, she engaged in global business restructuring, including stock transfer and reorganization. She also worked for corporate governance and investment management of global portfolio companies.
CEO
Joined Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation in 1999.
After working in solutions sales for corporate clients, he spent about 10 years at NTT Resonant, where he was involved in planning and developing web services and launching new businesses.
From 2012, he was with NTT Docomo Ventures for six years, investing in 21 companies, 15 of which subsequently exited (through IPO or M&A).
In 2018, he worked at NTT Docomo, developing new businesses in the sports and entertainment fields.
He will return to NTT Docomo Ventures in June 2023, and assume the role of Chief Executive Officer.
Investment Managing Director
He has an extensive track record of IPOs and M&A exits, while also specializing in investments with business alliances.
He has been in the VC industry for about 20 years and has invested in nearly 30 venture companies.
After that, he was in charge of new business and e-commerce business of Aeon Retail, where he reformed the business, and became Managing Director of NTT DOCOMO Ventures in June 2023.
Investment Director
Miwa joined Docomo Ventures from August 2022. She is responsible for business management and fund management of DOCOMO Ventures.
Miwa joined NTT DOCOMO after graduating from 2008 in Japan and experienced in sales support operations for DOCOMO Shops. Her next post was in Global Business Department and she worked for about 11 years, mainly in charge of business management of DOCOMO subsidiaries in Europe, US, and Asia. She gained financial experience through a secondment to a subsidiary based in Italy. After returning to Japan, she was in charge of planning strategies for overseas subsidiaries.
Miwa holds an MBA from Graduate School of Management, GLOBIS University (2022).
Investment Director
As a one of founding members of NTT Docomo Ventures (formerly NTT Investment Partners) since 2008, he was consistently involved in NTT's corporate venture capital activities. He led many investments in Israel, South East Asia, Europe, and Japan such as Riskified, Otonomo, and Wiliot. He helped these companies with their Japan market entry, and has built and facilitated the relationships between the portfolio startups and the NTT group. He has also handled all of front, middle, and back office operations for the organization, such as fund management and exit strategies. Currently he is exploring the next promising areas of technology and sustainability in Israel and Europe.
Investment Director
Yuma Kotake, just joined NDV in 2023, is responsible for investment and supports start-ups and portfolio companies in interaction with NTT Groups.
He has more than 10 years of experience as in-house lawyer in NTT DOCOMO and dealt with various domestic/cross border M&A and other strategic alliance.
Prior to joining NDV, he was the General Manager of Business Planning Dept of DOCOMO Insight Marketing Inc. in charge of business strategy and development since 2021.
He loves classic hard rock and heavy metal, such as Gun N Roses, Bon Jovi, Van Halen, MÖTLEY CRÜE. His interest in international business and the English language actually developed as a result of the passion for them.
Attorney at Law, N.Y.
University of Pennsylvania Law School, LL.M. class of 2014
Wharton Business & Law Certificate, 2014
Investment Director
Yuko Sakamoto joined NTT DOCOMO Ventures in April 2024.
Before joining NDV, she worked at NTT DATA, where she engaged in data center and cloud computing platform business.
Subsequently, she worked as a pre-sales manager, engaged in low-code platform and process mining business.
Investment Director
After joining NTT DOCOMO as a new graduate, he was engaged in planning new services for consumers for a long time.
Later, after developing owned media and smartphone apps, he was in charge of business management, strategic support, and investment collaboration for DOCOMO's strategic subsidiaries.
From 2019, he was transferred to Information and Communication Research Institute, Inc. where he experienced research work on domestic and international 5G business trends and product technologies.
After returning to DOCOMO, he joined NTT DOCOMO Ventures in June 2024 after working on the development of d-point and d-payment merchants.
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Investment Director
After joining NTT DOCOMO, INC. as a new graduate, she has been engaged in a wide range of tasks aimed at the foundation of the telecommunications business and its next business development, including partner sales for DOCOMO shop agents, new food-related service planning, corporate sales for restaurants, business support for subsidiaries, secretary to the president, business law related strategy planning, public relations for government ministries, and collaboration with the NTT Group. Her personal areas of interest are food and agriculture, and she spends her weekends cultivating vegetables at a rented farm.
In 2020, she obtained an MBA from Aoyama Gakuin University Graduate School. She has been in her current position since July 2024.
Investment Manager
Yasutaka Imai is an Investment Manager at NTT DOCOMO Ventures, where he spearheads the creation of collaborations between startups and NTT Group.
Since joining NTT DOCOMO, INC in 2013, he served in the field of Corporate Communications as a PR Planner, where he was responsible for developing and executing external communication strategies for both Japanese and foreign media in areas such as business strategy, investment collaboration, new ventures, and advanced technologies. From 2016, he worked on a project for MWC Barcelona, the world's largest mobile-related exhibition, taking the lead to showcase DOCOMO’s technologies and global businesses.
Investment Manager
Joined a local bank and mainly engaged in corporate sales. In 2016, he was seconded to a regional bank-based VC and was in charge of startup investment. Later, with the establishment of the group's specialized investment subsidiary, he engaged in a wide range of fund operations, including buyout investment and fund raising, from the time of its establishment. To date, he has invested in more than 20 companies in a wide range of stages from startup to pre-IPO round. Participated in NTT Docomo Ventures from October 2023.
Investment Manager
Tomohiro joined NTT DOCOMO Ventures in April 2018. Prior to NDV, he worked for NTT Communications, where he engaged in streaming sevice platform.
Investment Manager
After joining NTT docomo, Yoshiaki engaged in mobile network infrastructure business, and ,made a traffic model that is the source of network infrastructure investment of hundreds of billions a year.
After that, he worked on internet services in the early days of smartphones, and was seconded to Rakuten.
He engaged in service planning and operation of Web and applications, and in charge of services of various forms (subscription, commerce, B2C, C2C, etc..) and genres (information distribution, agent service, auction, shopping, fashion, travel, etc..) , and he also serves as an outside lecturer.
He is currently committed to using these experiences to create innovation at startups and the NTT Group.
＜Current business＞
・ Planning and operation of Docomo Ventures event
・ Planning and operation of SNS (TW, FB, note)
・ Creation of collaboration between startups and NTT Group
・ Startup investment
Investment Manager
Taiki joined NTT DOCOMO, INC after graduating from Tokyo Institute of Technology Graduate School of Management of Technology. After joining the company, he engaged in sales consulting for DOCOMO Shops. He later engaged in formulating medium-term strategies for the mobile communications business and launching new alliance services at the Marketing Department. He joined NTT DOCOMO Ventures in April 2021 and has been in charge of investment in startups, creation of business collaboration and company management.
Co-Creation Director
Atsushi joined Docomo Ventures in September 2022. He is responsible for promoting collaboration between startups and NTT Group companies and supporting business development.
He started his career as a Software Engineer at NTT Internet and was engaged in the development of payment systems. At Future Architect, he was engaged in BPR projects as an IT consultant.
After that, he became a Digital Marketing Consultant. At Dentsu Digital (formerly Dentsu e-Marketing One) and Accenture, he was engaged in various projects such as marketing strategy formulation, new service planning, web/smartphone application development, campaign planning, marketing research, sales/marketing solution implementation, and promotion of open innovation activities between startups and client companies.
He later became engaged in new business development support. He worked for BCG Digital Ventures, an incubation firm, and Archetype, where he worked on various new business development projects for large companies.
Co-Creation Manager
Akiko is responsible for developing collaboration businesses between startups and NTT groups, especially with NTT Communications.
Akiko started her career as a network Engineer at NTT Communications.
She worked in the incubation development of Network Services and experience a development of Layer 2 and 3.
She joined the trainee program in 2016 and worked in Singapore as a network engineer.
After coming back to Japan, she was in the team of collaboration with NTT Communications and startups.
She was in charge of PoC support and pitch event, Meet Silicon Valley in Tokyo.
She joined NTT DOCOMO Ventures in July 2022.