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Yohei Sawayama

Founding Partner

Before Coral Capital, Yohei was a co-founder of 500 Startups Japan, where he invested in over 40 companies. Prior to that he was a researcher at Nomura Securities, where he worked on tech IPOs including Gunosy ($300m), bengo4.com ($80m), FreakOut ($110m), and Voyage Group ($240m). Before Nomura, he covered the TMT sector for J.P. Morgan’s investment banking division. He worked on Sony’s acquisition of So-Net Entertainment for $785m, Toshiba’s acquisition of Landis+Gyrfor $2.3bn (ASIAMONEY Japan Best M&A 2011), and Bain Capital’s acquisition of Skylark for $2.1bn.

Before his career in finance, Yohei was an engineer. He received his Bachelor’s in Computer Simulation and Master’s in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Tokyo. He still codes regularly and is likely the only VC to win major hackathons in Japan.