Nolan Paul is a partner at Yamaha Motor Ventures & Laboratory Silicon Valley (YMVSV), the US-based corporate venture capital (CVC) subsidiary of Japan-headquartered electronics and automotive manufacturer Yamaha.
George Kellerman, chief executive and managing director of YMVSV, said in his nomination of Paul: “Nolan joined our team as a partner in October 2018, and he has already made a name for himself in the CVC industry.
“Nolan led our recent investment in Advanced Farm Technologies, which is a strawberry harvesting robot, and as a result, he is taking a board seat on the company. He was also recently appointed as a board observer for two of our investments in New Zealand: Robotics Plus and Invert Robotics.
“Nolan has also been instrumental in developing the portfolio model and investment criteria for our new $100m fund [dubbed the Exploratory Fund], and he has supported other team members on doing the financial analysis of their proposed investments. I highly recommend him for consideration as a Rising Star.”
The unit invests primarily in seed, series A and series B ventures out the new vehicle and off the balance sheet. Paul said: “I lead our global food and agtech investments, where I have overall responsibility for our strategy and investment thesis, equity investments and ongoing portfolio management. I currently sit on three boards, as a director at Advanced Farm Technologies and as a board observer at Robotics Plus and Invert Robotics.”
Having developed YMVSV’s investment thesis for food and agriculture, Paul believes it will guide the unit’s investment strategy and influence the corporate’s future direction as it expands into agriculture as a major growth market.
Before YMVSV, Paul had been head of R&D strategy and emerging technology for fruit purveyor Driscoll’s for four years. He said: “I led early-stage innovation and investment for the company globally. While we did make a handful of equity investments during my time at Driscoll’s, the majority of our engagement with startups was through non-dilutive investments, joint ventures and R&D and commercialisation projects.”
Paul graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles with a bachelor’s degree in business economics with a minor in accounting.
