About
Welcome to my weblog.
My name is Shin Fukushige. (Actually, my full name is Shinichiro Fukushige, but I go by Shin, the common contraction of my given name, because for some reason people seem to have difficulty with pronouncing my name even though it is pronounced exactly it is spelt)
I am currently a venture capitalist at Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, the VC firm affiliated with the Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Japan’s largest financial institution.
I was born in Chiba, Japan, but lived in Japan for less than 4 years before our family was transplanted to the eastern seaboard of the United States of America. After spending a few years in Boston and New York, the family moved to London, England. After spending nearly 17 years living in London, I moved back to Tokyo in time for Y2K. I’ve been living and working in Tokyo ever since.
I received virtually all of my formal education in the UK, eventually graduating from a UK university (Imperial) with an engineering degree (MEng Materials Science and Engineering) then attending a year of law school (highly recommended even if one isn’t interested in law as a profession), I moved back to Japan sensing that Japan was going experience its own IT/.com boom after having spent some time in and around Silicon Valley in 98/99.
I have had experience in several different companies and sub-industries within the IT sector (software development house, network infrastructure provider, outsourcing services provider, software development/application service provider) including stints at heading up the Japanese operations of a couple of companies.
Needing a break from IT and management, I now find myself in the venture capital industry, my interest are in IT(software, hardware, services, ie pretty broad reflecting my previous work experience) and manufacturing/engineering/science related sectors with a bias towards deals with a cross-border angle. (Funding and assisting overseas companies to tackle to Japanese market, or assisting Japanese companies who are keen to tackle global domination)
I’d say I’m a technologist first and foremost, but VC work is nicely aligned with my interests.
Although (because?) I spent 20+ years living in the anglophone world, I’ve always had a strong sense of my Japanese identity.
Although I am currently living in my country of birth, I often still feel like an outsider (which has both positive and negative implications, mostly positive, I think), although I can pass myself off as being one of the locals without effort, to the extent that people don’t believe me when I say I have never had the opportunity of receiving a formal Japanese education (It helps to have that kind of social flexibility working in a conservative workplace environment surrounded mostly by Japanese financial industry salaryman-types – not to say that I don’t find the work environment challenging).
Reasons I started this blog:
1. To promote discussion of Japan related business and technology issues in English, because there is still a paucity of English language information regarding Japan related news.
(main topics – VC investing, IT, mobile/wireless, high technology)
2. To write more generally about topics concerning Tokyo and Japan (politics and economics, and lighter stuff too, perhaps).
3. To write about anything else I find interesting (and I also post commentary in Japanese to expose overseas information I find interesting to the Japanese readers who may find difficulty digesting the original posts)
You can contact me via email at shin_at_fukumimi_dot_org or on Skype at shin_dot_fukushige (replace _at_ with @, and _dot_ with . – you get the idea)
It goes without saying that as a professional working in the venture capital industry, if I ever write about one of our firm’s portfolio companies, I will disclose that clearly in the relevant post.
The opinions stated in this blog are entirely my own, and in no way relate to or reflect those of my employer or any other persons or entities.
