Top Japan SaaS VC on How To Build SaaS with AI, Benchmark Your SaaS Company in Today's Markets, and Break into Japan with One Capital's Shinji Asada (Call #124)

On Call with Insignia Ventures

Insignia Ventures founding managing partner, Yinglan Tan, returns to host this episode as we go on call with Shinji Asada, Co-Founder & CEO, General Partner of One Capital. As a 20+ year veteran in the SaaS and venture capital space in Japan (formerly ITOCHU Ventures, Salesforce Ventures), Shinji shares his decades of experience in investing and building software companies across Japan and the US.

In this episode, Shinji and Yinglan cover a range of topics, including Shinji's approach to investing in market-transforming software companies from the likes of Mercari to Visional, One Capital's digital transformation initiatives for their LPs, and their incubation of SaaS benchmarking and business modeling platform, Projection-ai. They also discuss valuable insights on the Japanese SaaS market, advice for founders looking to expand to Japan and go public on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, and what the future of SaaS companies will be with AI.

Timestamps

(01:04) From ITOCHU to Salesforce to One Capital: Shinji Asada’s 20+ years of growing and investing in SaaS companies from the US to Japan;

(06:20) Digital Transformation for LPs, Projection-ai, Visional: Stories from a SaaS VC’s Approach to Transforming Japan;

(13:07) Language Barriers, Tokyo Stock Exchange, 10 Billion VC Market, and The Evolving Japanese Entrepreneur: Advice on Cracking the Japanese Market for Founders and Investors;

(20:02) Topical Discussions: Navigating Sales for SaaS in Tight Spending and Cost-Cutting Market, Implications of Generative AI for SaaS Building;

(23:05) #MinuteMasterclass: Metrics to Benchmark for SaaS Companies;

(24:58) #RapidFireRound;

About our guest

Shinji Asada⁠ is the Co-Founder & CEO, and General Partner of One Capital, a Tokyo-based early-stage enterprise software-focused VC fund. The debut fund reached $170 million, the largest first-time VC fund in Japan's history (source: Preqin). The firm also has an incubation arm and recently launched Projection-ai and db to help entrepreneurs build financial projections in seconds and also have instant access to relevant SaaS metrics.

Previously, Shinji was the Japan Head of Salesforce Ventures. Portfolio companies then include Sansan(TYO:4443), Teamspirit(TYO:4397), free(TYO:4478), Goodpatch(TYO: 7351), Yappli(TYO: 4168), Visional(TYO:4194), Flect(TYO: 4414), Andpad, Studist, Toreta, PhoneAppli(acquired by NTT Communications), and more. He invested in 7 of Forbes Japan's Top 10 Cloud companies in both 2018 and 2019.

Shinji has over 20 years of extensive business development/operation and investment experience in the technology industry in Japan and in the U.S. During his days at ITOCHU Technology Ventures, Shinji invested in Mercari (TYO:4385), Uzabase (TYO:3396), Muse & Co.(Acquired by Mixi), Box (NYSE:Box), and WHILL. Also at ITOCHU, he invested in Aruba Networks(IPO, acquired by HP), Starent Networks (acquired by Cisco) and Cast Iron Systems (acquired by IBM). He earned an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management and a BE in Economics from Keio University.

The content of this podcast is for informational purposes only, should not be taken as legal, tax, or business advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Insignia Ventures⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ fund.