Tsuyoshi Ito is the Managing Partner & CEO of Beyond Next Ventures Inc.,(“BNV”) a Tokyo based venture capital firm, which he founded in August 2014.
He has raised and manages two funds for startups with committed capital totaling a little under $200million. He has over 15 years of investment experience focused on supporting the commercialization of cutting-edge technologies and spinnoff startups from university. He invests in various fields such as medical device, robotics, digital health, healthcare services, Agri tech, food and new materials. Prior to founding BNV, he was Group Leader of industry-academia collaboration investment group at JAFCO, Japan’s largest venture capital firm. His major investments include CYBERDYNE (IPO), W-Scope (IPO), Morpho (IPO),TKP(IPO), Spiber, astamuse, Microwave Chemical, CureApp, River Field, Lily MedTech, Aillis, POL, IntegriCulture, OPEｘPARK, NOVENINE, Regional fish. Currently, he serves as a visiting associate professor at Nagoya University, and has served as a member of the Startup committee of the Cabinet Office and various ministries and agencies.
He received a Master Degree in Chemical Engineering from Tokyo Institute of Technology.

Kengo Ueha is the Partner and co-founder of Beyond Next Ventures(“BNV”), a Tokyo based venture capital firm focused on technology start-ups. BNV manages two funds for startups with committed capital totaling over $150 million. Kengo has 17 years’ experience in the venture capital industry and has been involved with successful IPOs and trade sales, covering the life science and the ICT sectors. His expertise includes VC investment as well as fund operations & administration. Prior to joining Beyond Next Ventures, Kengo worked for 12 years in JAFCO Co.,Ltd., Japan’s largest venture capital firm.

After working with large pharmaceutical and medical companies as a consultant at McKinsey & Company, Mayu Morishima joined BNV to work more closely with startup companies and support raw innovation in Japan. In addition to leading BNV’s life science and biotech investments, Mayu is in charge of BNV’s global expansion and Blockbuster TOKYO program as one of its core management members. Mayu’s goal is to transform innovations in academia, especially in Japan, into actual products that improve people’s lives and society. Mayu’s research experience includes characterization of the mechanism of piRNAs, those have been linked to gene silencing of retrotransposons and other genetic elements while undergoing molecular biology training as a graduate student at Kyoto University and the University of Tokyo. Mayu also studied drug-resistant tuberculosis strains in a genotyping project at the KwaZulu-Natal Research Institute for TB and HIV (K-RITH) in South Africa.

Shota Sagiyama has over 10 years of experience as a headhunter. In particular, the formation and hiring of management teams at technology startups. He joined the company in 2017. He is responsible for supporting the growth of our portfolio companies.
Finding and nurturing particularly talented people and building community is one of the things he is passionate about.

Graduated from the Department of Physics, Graduate School of Science, Tohoku University and MBA, Graduate School of Management, Globis University.
Joined Toshiba in April 2006 and led the research and development of next-generation optical disks in the R&D Center and the planning, development and manufacturing of HDDs for cloud servers.
Joined DBJ Capital in August 2015. Invested in tech startups and joined the company in March 2016
Main areas of responsibility: medical devices, electronics, AI, running the acceleration program BRAVE

Aki Igarashi has been involved in Beyond Next Ventures as a manager in Administration Group from 2018.
Prior to BNV, she managed overseas branch system construction at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi (current MUFG Bank), then involved in industry-academia collaboration more than 10
Years. After working at a general incorporated foundation for fisheries and ocean research, joined the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) in 2015, where she was in charge of START (Program for creating start-ups from advanced research and technology).
She received a Bachelor of Arts in Environment and Information Studies from Keio University.

Takashi Nakaoka graduated from the Faculty of Law at Kyoto University.
After successfully working as a marketing specialist at a consulting firm, joined Beyond Next Ventures in January 2019.

Akito Arima joined Marubeni Corporation in April 2017. In the Grain Division, he was involved in all aspects of agribusiness from production to sales through the trading business. In addition, he is also involved in start-up investments by setting up an in-house investment team focusing on agri-tech.
He joined BNV in August 2019. Engaged as an investment manager focusing on agri-tech, food-tech and other life-tech sectors in general.
His goal is to create an agri-tech ecosystem. I would like to support the creation of an ecosystem of industry-academia-government-private cooperation and global expansion.

Masashi Tsuda has joined Beyond Next Ventures in April 2019 as a member of investment division.
His first career is a sales specialist in NK Medico co., LTD., a biotech startup to utilizing novel bio-maker as a blood test to detect early symptoms of vascular disorder. After achieving MVP award in NKM, he promoted academic sales and collaboration research with universities and hospitals.
Masashi has received a master’s degree in engineering from Kyoto University Graduate school of engineering. He belonged to Bio-macromolecular Science Laboratory and researched Drug Delivery System.

Mayu Sugisaki is the lab manager of ‘Beyond BioLAB TOKYO’, a shared laboratory primarily used by biotech startups.
Prior to BNV, Mayu was a business analyst at Accenture. Mayu is deeply interested in cellular agriculture and is working to popularize cell-based food.
Mayu holds a Bachelor’s degree in Agriculture from Hokkaido University and a Master’s degree in Medical Science from the University of Tokyo.

Having graduated from Ochanomizu University, Norie Nagao worked at JAFCO for three years and went to France to study at ESSEC Business School (MSc in Management). After graduation she became buyside analyst at a local investment company to advise management of Japan-Asia equity fund. In 2000,she came back to Japan to work at Credit Lyonnais Asset Management as ananalyst of Japanese equity fund. In 2004 she joined MKS Partners as an investor relations. She left Japan to live in Sweden with family and had been freelance translator of French and English before joining BNV in 2016.

Caleb has started 6 businesses across diverse sectors including the entertainment, restaurant, drone and biotech industries. Together with six others, he cofounded G4S Capital and Ikigai Accelerator a venture capital and life science business Accelerator focused on connecting the Japanese and Silicon Valley entrepreneurial ecosystems.
His first interactions with life sciences in Japan was doing experiments at SPring-8 during his graduate studies. After leaving Stanford with his PhD, he founded Bell Biosystems, Inc. a synthetic biology company developing enabling tools for tracking and controlling cell therapies, where he served as CEO till early 2017.
Caleb received a B.S. Degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the Pennsylvania State University, a Ph.D. in Biophysical Chemistry from Stanford University and business training in Stanford Graduate School of Business’ Ignite Program.

1997　Joined Showa Ota & Co. (current name: Ernst & Young ShinNihon LLC)
2010　Partner, Ernst & Young ShinNihon LLC
2019　Representative Partner, Edogawa Certified Public Accountant Office
While at an audit firm, he helped many startups, including life science and IT-related companies, go public. He currently focuses on supporting technology-related companies and is involved in a number of innovation-related policies of central ministries and agencies as an external committee member.

He has more than 10 years of experience in the medical device and drug development field, including four and a half years at a regulatory agency (PMDA).
He was engaged in medical affairs for the launch of existing and new drugs at a foreign-owned pharmaceutical company in Japan, and in the development of biopharmaceuticals at a U.S. subsidiary of a domestic pharmaceutical company.
He is the first MD with industry experience to join the Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency (PMDA), where he served as a medical reviewer in the field of medical devices and pharmaceuticals, and after leaving PMDA, he has been engaged in clinical development consulting in addition to running a medical practice and visiting nursing business.
He has extensive clinical experience in aesthetic dermatology, cosmetic surgery, obstetrics and gynecology, internal medicine, pediatrics, neurosurgery, and anesthesiology, as well as knowledge of both industry and regulatory agencies, pharmaceuticals and medical devices.

She worked at Terumo Corporation as a Research manager.
After graduating from the Graduate School of Science at a national university, she worked for 17 years in medical device development at Terumo Corporation, where she developed blood-related products, implantable medical devices for surgery, hospital products, electronic devices, and pharmaceuticals, as well as regulatory applications.
In addition, as head of the development division, she is responsible for the management of the entire development division with developing human resources. Along the way, she was seconded to the University of Tokyo Hospital for one year to conduct basic research such as cell culture with doctors and nurses and to explore needs in the medical field.
In 2015, she founded Medical Lab Partners Corporation to develop products that meet the needs of patients, and has consulted with more than 150 medical device development companies on development issues.

After graduating from Kyushu University with a degree in genetic resources engineering, he worked at Astellas Pharma, where he was involved in intellectual property matters, and was assigned to the U.S., where he was responsible for M&A and alliances.

In intellectual property litigation, he has won 12 victories and lost none, generating profits of more than 10 billion yen, by leveraging his outstanding pharmaceutical legal and intellectual property strategies. He has also co-founded several startups and served as a director and chief legal officer.
He has also served as a mentor for the Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s “Blockbuster TOKYO,” a program to support the development of drug discovery and medical ventures. Specially Appointed Professor of OI Strategy Organization, Tohoku University.

He has been in charge of medical device review at PMDA for four and a half years and has a wide range of evaluation experience from clinical trials to in-vitro studies.
He has also been a lecturer in new employee education and medical device regulatory seminars. Later, he was seconded to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, where he was responsible for the pricing of medical devices, in vitro diagnostics, regenerative medicine and other products. After leaving the government, he worked for a medical IT venture as an insurance agent for a medical device application and as a product development strategist for a major medical device manufacturer.

At Tokyo Jikei University of Medicine, where he is currently working, he conducts research on medical IT and medical devices, while also fostering venture companies and providing advice to medical device manufacturers.

Devang Thakor is the founder and president of Anioplex, LLC, a global strategic, business, and technical advisory firm in Silicon Valley. For more than a decade, he has worked closely with startups, multinational corporations, venture capital firms, and universities to enable their development and deployment of groundbreaking “deep” technologies. Dr. Thakor previously developed gene therapy, stem cell, and biomaterial technologies and their applications to spinal cord injury and chronic pain at Harvard Medical School, Kyoto University, and UCLA. His research has been featured in over 20 publications (15 as first or co-first author) in leading journals. He received his B.S in mathematics/applied science and psychobiology and M.S. and Ph.D. in biomedical engineering, with neuroengineering emphasis, all from UCLA. He is currently studying law at Santa Clara University, where he expects to receive his J.D. in July 2020, with the High Tech Law Certificate with corporate specialization, and is a recipient of the Emery Merit Scholarship and CALI Excellence for the Future award.

Founder, Japan Biodesign Association and Adviser, Japan Biodesign Academic Society
Ex Chairman, Terumo Corporation and Ex Chairman, Japanese Association of Medical Device Industry Federation
CEO, Art Management Shimanami LLC

He was formerly the Executive Vice President of Kobayashi Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. and the Representative Director of its affiliated company, Medicon Inc.
He has been involved in the management and development of medical device manufacturing & sales companies in Japan and in the United States over 40 years.
He is still supporting　activities　in　management　and　developing　new　products　in　Medical　market .He　feels　that　the　experience of working in the silicon valley in the 1990s is still useful and well today.