Sharing our experience in industry-academia collaboration and regional revitalization from OIST, aiming to contribute to the ecosystem
It is our pleasure to announce that Ryosuke Kimura, General Partner of Lifetime Ventures took office as a director of the Japan Venture Capital Association ("JVCA") on January 31, 2024.
Ryosuke Kimura founded Lifetime Ventures in January 2017 as a young emerging VC fund manager (then 29 years old) and has been consistently investing in pre-seed-stage startups aiming for long-term innovation that will be loved for up to 30 years. In 2022, in collaboration with the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST), Lifetime Ventures established the OIST-Lifetime Ventures Fund and began activities in the deeptech space. As of the end of 2023, more than 30% of the management team of companies funded by this fund are women, and more than 60% are of minority nationality, leading investment activities with high diversity even by global standards and promoting support for entrepreneurs aiming for the world from the very initial stage of founding.
Taking this opportunity to assume the position of JVCA director, we will strive to further collaborate with related companies and contribute to the development of the startup ecosystem in Japan and each region and the creation of successful cases at the global level.
■About Ryosuke Kimura, General Partner of Lifetime Ventures / Director of the Japan Venture Capital Association (JVCA)
＜Profile＞
Born in 1987. From Hiroshima City, Hiroshima Prefecture, lives in Yokohama City, Kanagawa Prefecture.
After graduating from the Department of Business Administration, Faculty of Commerce, Hitotsubashi University, he engaged in consulting services related to public infrastructure/healthcare at PricewaterhouseCoopers Co., Ltd. (now PwC Advisory LLC) and KPMG Healthcare Japan Co., Ltd. Since February 2015, he has been participating in the Incubate Fund, engaging in support for over 40 invested companies such as ispace Inc., Gatebox Inc., and iCARE Inc.
He established Lifetime Ventures, an independent pre-seed VC, in January 2017. Since April 2022, he has established a fund in collaboration with Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) and is focusing on seed investment and incubation for DeepTech startups. He is a recommendation committee member for the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry's J-Startup, a judge for the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry's Japan Healthcare Business Contest (JHeC) 2018-2024, and a director of the Japan Venture Capital Association (JVCA) from January 2024.
■About JVCA
Since its establishment in November 2002, our association has been working towards the goal of strengthening the role of cooperation in the VC industry and the nurturing of venture companies. The number of regular members of our association, which includes VC and CVC, has doubled in the last five years to 267 companies, and including supporting members from industry support companies, the size is 349 companies as of August 2023.
■About Lifetime Ventures
Lifetime Ventures is a pre-seed/seed-focused venture capital based in Yokohama and Okinawa, supporting unconventional entrepreneurs aiming to launch healthcare/sustainability companies that will reach the world 30 years from now.
Since its establishment in 2017, it has been supporting the growth and investment of over 40 startups, including Rehab for JAPAN, an AgeTech company that redesigns the lives of the elderly through rehabilitation, Uo, which creates a new distribution and resource management model for the Japanese fishing industry, and EF Polymer, which develops super-absorbent eco-friendly polymers born from crop residues.