Enhancing
the Future

Yuhei Yano

President & CEO / Managing Director

Yuhei Yano is the President & CEO and Managing Director at TGVP focused on investments in the areas of Manufacturing, Robotic, Material, Construction/Property, and technology-enabled SaaS. Yuhei has over 15 years of venture capital experience in the US and Japan. Prior to TGVP, Yuhei spent three years at Toppan Strategic Investment Group, focusing on startup investment activity where one of his portfolio companies went public and another acquired by Toppan Inc. Prior to Toppan, Yuhei worked at Future Venture Capital (FVC) where he focused on fundraising, and various advisory services as well as startup investment and exit. His past investment includes CRESTEC (TSE 7812) and 3D MATRIX (TSE 7777). Yuhei graduated with a B.A. in Commerce from Chuo University.

Ed Lau

Managing Director

Ed Lau is a Partner at Toppan Global Venture Partners (TGVP). Educated as a computer scientist, he has spent 20+ years inside venture funded startups including co-founding, Audible (NASDAQ: AMZN), the global leader in spoken audio on the internet today and New Moon Systems (NYSE: ORCL), an enterprise software company that pioneered technology for Software as a Service (SaaS). Over the past 15+ years as a venture capitalist, Ed has helped drive investments globally in numerous startups; helping guide startups / founders towards operating success. Co-author of 11 patents, Ed holds an M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley and an A.B. from New York University.

Yoji kawaguchi

Managing Director

Yoji Kawaguchi is the partner at TGVP. He has spent 11+ years in Venture Capital and 8+ years in business development connecting Silicon Valley startup companies with Asian partners. Yoji is the co-founder and CEO of Delta Pacific Partners where his efforts resulted in “win-win” strategic investments from Japanese corporations into a number of Silicon Valley startups. Furthermore, his efforts have enabled the successful entry of a number of startup companies into the Japanese market. Yoji holds an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business and a M.S. and B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Tokyo.

Yusaku Masunaga

CTO / Venture Partner

Yusaku Masunaga is the CTO and a Venture Partner at TGVP focused on investments in the areas of Cybersecurity, Fintech, Enterprise SaaS and Retail Technology. Yusaku started his career as an embedded security software engineer at Toppan and has deep knowledge of cybersecurity and identification/authentication technologies. He has been working with startups for business development in the U.S. for over ten years. Yusaku studied nuclear physics and graduated with the Degree of Master of Engineering at Nagoya University.

Chris Lee

Senior Associate

Chris Lee is a Senior Associate at TGVP, tasked with assisting partners in locating, qualifying, and analyzing potential products. Chris has 14 years of experience in Engineering and Financial roles, and has worked with startup projects ranging from Semiconductors to Social Media to Agtech. BSc Mechanical Engineering from Loyola Marymount University (2013); MBA, Finance Focus from Santa Clara University (2022)

Issei Kusano

Associate / Venture Partner

Issei Kusano is an Associate and Venture Partner at TGVP focused on investments in the areas of Food/Beverage, Supply Chain Management, Climate Tech, Smart City, and Agriculture. Issei started his career as a sales representative for packaging products at Toppan where he gained an expertise of the global packaging market. Most recently, he has focused his efforts and experience towards to new business development and strategic investment in US startups. Prior to coming to the US, he spent several years working with Japanese startups to develop new business in Japan. Issei graduated from Kyushu University and majored in Agriculture focused on fish immunity. Additionally, he is a Master of Business Administration from Waseda University.