Today marks another exciting milestone for us at Coral Capital—I am thrilled to announce that serial entrepreneur Rie Yano is joining our investment team as a Venture Partner.
Rie is best known for co-founding Material World (acquired by Mixi), a pioneering luxury fashion trade-in service that reshaped the way consumers engage with high-end fashion. Before launching her own company, she built a deep understanding of brand strategy, digital media, and e-commerce while working at Coach and Mitsubishi. More recently, she has been involved in initiatives around longevity and the future of aging, co-hosting Vitalist Bay, a longevity innovation hub in California. Rie’s unique background as a founder traversing Japan and the US make her an incredible addition to our team at a time when we are doubling down on our role as the premier venture capital firm bridging the US and Japan.
Rie will play a key role in sourcing investment opportunities in the U.S., focusing on startups that have ambitions to enter Japan and leverage our platform. While Japan is one of the world’s largest economies, it can often feel like a black box for most international companies. However, major businesses can be built here if executed well. Salesforce does over $1 billion in ARR in Japan. Japan is X (formerly known as Twitter)’s second largest market. Palantir has established a strong foothold in Japan, recently securing a $50m contract from a single Japanese client. Many more successful examples exist.
We have built the strongest ecosystem for helping companies navigate the market, providing access to capital, talent, and the strategic insights needed to win. The first thing startups often need in Japan is to hire a country manager. We are excellent at c-level hiring, and the country manager is essentially the Founder and CEO of Japan. The Japan CEO is going to need to scale up the team quickly, just like our other startups in Japan. We hire about 200 people a year for our startups and have over 16,000 people in our talent database now. The Japan office is also essentially a startup in Japan, where the go-to market, networks, and operational challenges may be completely different than for example, the US. Many of our startups in Japan are discussing these topics amongst themselves within our Ecosystem already. These insights are not only helpful to Japanese startups, but also foreign startups entering Japan.
Rie will also support our Japanese portfolio companies in navigating U.S. expansion and fundraising. As Japanese startups look beyond their domestic market, they will need guidance on how to fundraise and hire effectively in the U.S. and scale globally. With her deep understanding of both ecosystems, Rie will be instrumental in helping founders make this leap.
Rie’s addition to Coral Capital comes at a pivotal moment as we continue expanding our team, scaling our investments, and deepening our ability to support founders at a global level. More than her impressive track record, it is her vision, values, and deep understanding of what it takes to scale businesses across borders that make her a perfect fit.
We are incredibly excited to welcome Rie to the Coral Capital team. With her insights and network, we look forward to strengthening our position as the bridge between Japan and the US. Youkoso, Rie!
Founding Partner & CEO @ Coral Capital
