Shingo Kato, senior vice-president at Japan-based Recuit’s corporate venture capital unit, Recruit Strategic Partners, has the backing of his boss, Akihiko Okamoto, who said: “I definitely recommend Shingo Kato in our firm, who is leading the investment team of our CVC unit.
“He has executed more than 10 deals since 2015 in artificial intelligence, the internet of things and robotics, including notable deals like DataRobot, Conversica, Plenty and Starship Technologies. He covers deal-sourcing, contract negotiation, deal execution, monitoring and networking.
“In addition, he supports his portfolio companies in building and entering a Japanese ecosystem, planning go-to-market strategy, hiring, finding the first customer, marketing, seeking business partners as a strategic partner.”
Kato added: “I have worked with the executive team of Datarobot from the early days planning to enter the Japanese market. With our collaboration, they have achieved rapid growth, acquiring more than 100 customers in Japan in less than two years.
“Maximising the value for the corporate and the startup can seem to be a trade-off, or appear to cause a conflict, but I absolutely believe there is a way to maximise both values and the mission of the CVC creatively.”
Prior to joining Recruit, Kato was a software engineer at IBM with six international technical patents before becoming a systems engineer and covering technical sales.
