Disrupting Japan: Startups and Venture Capital in Japan

Disrupting Japan: Startups and Venture Capital in Japan


Artificial Intelligence’s broken promise and its secret truth

October 15, 2019

The promise of AI is easily understood by anyone with an imagination, and for 40 years, venture capitalists have been enthusiastically investing in that promise.

However, it's been significantly harder for founders to turn that investment into sustainable business models. 

Today we are going to look at why that is, and go over what might be a blueprint for startups to create business models around artificial intelligence.

Tatsuo Nakamura founded Valuenex in 2006 with the goal of using artificial intelligence to supplement the work being done by patent attorneys, and their software was instrumental in the resolution of one of Japan's most famous, and most valuable, lawsuits.  the Blue LED patent case.

We also talk about how to sell to large companies as a small startup, the challenges in trying to make product strategy based on technology, why staying private longer is not always a good thing for startups, and how Valuenex technology accidentally discovered a secret collaboration between Honda and Google.

It's a great discussion with the founder of one of Japan's most successful AI companies, and I think you will really enjoy it.