In the first edition of our Investor Fireside Chat on July 15, Naoyoshi Yoneyama, Managing Director, SBI Holdings, Berlin GmbH had an insightful conversation with our AsiaBerlin Ambassador Chika Yamamoto, Founder & Managing Director, Crossbie.

The two spoke about investment opportunities for Berlin Startups, the Japan-Berlin startup collaboration dynamics, and the future plans of Future Industry Venture Fund . We had 50 attendees join us online – a truly global community from Japan, Germany, China, India, United States and the UK.

Recently SoftBank Group spin-off SBI (one of the largest Japanese startup investors) announced to invest 200 million euros in European startups from Berlin with the new “Future Industry Ventures Fund”. The partners believe that European companies have an innovative edge over Asia on topics such as intelligent factories, the Internet of Things (IoT) and industrial robots. Full article here. 

“We already had a couple of direct investments into Berlin-based startups, such as Solaris Bank, and in order to support these companies, as well as to develop a stronger footprint for SBI Group in Europe, I came to lead our new office in Berlin, the new startup hub in Europe. Here, we partner with local firm Redstone to establish the EUR 200m “Future Industry Ventures Fund” on “Industry 4.0”. Having considered the similarities between Japan and Germany, we will focus on common industries, such as manufacturing and automobiles, where Germany is very strong,”

Naoyoshi Yoneyama, Managing Director, SBI Holdings.

Through the AsiaBerlin Fireside Chat events, we bring the spotlight on investors who are building bridges between startup ecosystems in Berlin and Asia. With AsiaBerlin events, the Berlin Senate Department for Economics and our project partner Enpact bring valuable insights and actionable advice from trailblazers who funded Berlin startups focusing on various Asian markets.