We are excited to share that Ken Nishimura has joined Coral Capital.
Ken joins us from Google, where he was the industry head of startups and strategic relationships in Japan. However, most people may know him for his time as Chief Editor at TechCrunch Japan. During his tenure, he tripled traffic in less than five years, and grew the TechCrunch Tokyo conference to over 2500 attendees, making it the largest startup event in Japan at the time. Prior to that, he held senior roles at ITmedia and ASCII over a long career in journalism.
For those that have followed us closely, this hire should seem like an obvious fit. From the onset, we have believed in “doing well by doing good.” Instead of fighting for a bigger piece of the startup pie in Japan, we focused on growing that pie for everyone. Part of that meant delivering high quality content to local founders and stakeholders, so that more would be armed with the knowledge to succeed. In parallel with our regular blogging, we introduced the J-KISS, shared data on market fundraising terms, and translated content from abroad. Through these efforts, our reach grew to 100,000 – 200,000 people per week on Facebook and Twitter. Content has always been in our DNA, so it is only natural that we now bring on a true professional as we build up Coral Capital.
We are a firm with Silicon Valley roots, therefore having someone that both understands Japan and Silicon Valley was important to us. Ken has an innate ability to transcend the barriers that earn Japan the nickname, “the Galapagos.” He not only understands, but truly connects with people on both sides, and can bridge the two.
We are also a firm full of creators. We don’t only blog and produce video. We also build our own websites and databases, and use technology to measure KPIs in all facets of what we do. All of us have some tech chops, including Ken. He was not only a reporter but also an engineer when he was at ITmedia. You can find him on GitHub @knsmr.
Ken was the first to cover us when we launched our first fund with 500 Startups. Now, as Coral Capital, we are excited to have him be the first to join us as we strive to build a firm that will stand the test of time. Welcome to the team, Ken.
Founding Partner & CEO @ Coral Capital
