Shigeki Saitoh

 

Shigeki “Tommy” Saitoh is Representative Partners of SIP, Inc. (originally founded in 1996 by Tommy’s father, Atsushi Saitoh, who pioneered the limited partnership structure for venture capital as co-founder of JAFCO in Japan) and a leading, venture capitalist in Japan with over 15 years of investment experience specializing in technology investments and cross-border business development for portfolio companies. Tommy had been also the head of the global business division of the JVCA (Japan Venture Capital Association) while he was director of the organization.

 

Tommy started his career at NTT, where he worked for over 10 years, and specialized in strategy and government relations for enterprise clients.

 

At the dawn of the Internet, he decided to participate in the space. He left NTT and learned venture management at MBA of MIT. After that, Tommy then joined Netscape Communications Corporation as an only Japanese in the International web business team, where he helped spread and develop the internet portal business for the Japanese Market.

 

He later joined Digital Garage Inc. as COO, where he leveraged his business experience by developing a new method of business incubation called “sponsored incubation” to lead the company to a successful IPO (TYO: 4819; $2B USD market cap). During his tenure at Digital Garage, he also led to the development of several Japanese companies including Kakakucom Inc. (TYO: 2371: $7B USD market cap) as a Representative Director.

 

Shigeki was a Professor at the Graduate School of Digital Hollywood University from 2004-2011 and has published two books on the venture capital industry including “Shocks in digital conversion”, “Innovation Ecosystem and New growth strategy”