Koichiro Nakamura

Mr. Nakamura received an MBA from the University of Chicago, GraduateSchool of Business and also graduated from Waseda University, holding a Bachelor of Law.

Koichiro “Koh” Nakamura is a Founder and General Partner of Sozo Ventures. He was first Japanese in the Forbes Midas List 100, global Venture Capitalists top 100 Ranking in 2021,2022 and 2023, for investments in Coinbase and Palantir, and for leading Sozo’s investment in Square.

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He is also actively involved with Zoom, Fastly, Insightly, One Concern, Chainalysis, Applied Intuition and Metagenomi among others.

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He also serve as a Council Member at the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at University of Chicago and Management council member at Tokyo Institute of Technology. He was an early pioneer in Japan’s IT scene as a member of the founding team of Yahoo Japan, and led the seed investment into Scigineer (TSE:6031). He co-founded Sozo Ventures in 2012 to guide globally ambitious founders looking to maximize Japan and Asian expansion opportunities.

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He graduated from Waseda University, then received an MBA from the University of Chicago. He was a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 12 and received the Jeff Timmons Memorial Award in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the program.

Koichiro is a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 12. He is the recipient of the Jeff Timmons Memorial Award, which recognizes his outstanding contributions to the program. He has been a mentor to Yuki Iwashita (Class 17), Martin Garcia (Class 19), and Yoshihiko Karita (Class 20).