Yohei Nakajima is a general partner at Untapped Capital, a pre-seed venture capital firm investing in unexpected founders. The firm's unique approach, sourcing primarily through outbound, is unique to early-stage ventures. Nakajima previously was the senior vice president for Scrum Studio, sourcing start-ups for global corporations such as Nintendo, SoftBank, and Panasonic. Prior to Scrum, he was the first director of pipeline at Techstars, running top-of-funnel sourcing for all 30-plus Techstars accelerators. In addition to operating Untapped Capital, he is the artist and founder behind PixelBeasts, a 10,000 non-fungible token (NFT) project providing access to a community of VCs and founders exploring Web3 together.
Yohei's Investing Style
How many years of investing experience do you have? 1-5 years
What is your investing risk tolerance? Medium-high
What is your portfolio size? 10-20 stocks
What are your favorite investing sectors? Information technology
When did you get started in investing and why?
I initially started investing when I joined Techstars to help spin up the Disney Accelerator. My background up to this point had been community building in the start-up space, which was relevant to my role in the program. What was amazing was sitting in a room alongside seasoned investors and Disney Accelerators to vet entertainment startups, especially when they didn't agree on certain assumptions. I continued to get interested in investing as I moved to a more central role within Techstars as a director of pipeline.
Can you tell us a little bit about your relationship with money at an early age?
I consider myself lucky in that my parents did not come from money, and they taught me at an early age to manage money carefully while not actually having to worry whether we would have food on the table. Over the course of my childhood, the company my father was at grew to be very large (Microsoft), and he moved on to help start a venture capital firm and his own start-up.
What has your journey been like as an investor, and what are some of the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
My journey as an investor has been all about my mentors and the people I get to work with. I've been very blessed to work with people who have taught me various aspects of investing. One of the largest challenges of investing is that the landscape is continuing to change so rapidly that you can't simply rely on mentorship but also must observe the landscape and come up with new solutions to new problems.
What’s one story from your life that totally defines who you are today, and how has that impacted your investing career?
In middle school, I remember calling friends’ parents coordinating rides so that we could all make it to the mall. This was a regular occurrence. I still find myself spending a lot of time figuring out how to get the right people in the right room together and doing whatever needs to happen to make this happen.
With so many younger investors dipping their toes in investing, what’s the best advice you have for someone who may be looking to start investing or who may be newer to the industry?
Look for opportunities to work with and get close to people you want to learn from. Everything else will fall into place.
You juggle so many tasks and wear so many hats. How do you manage the balance between your work life and your personal life and still manage to meet your investment goals?
Lots of discipline, both in terms of time management and saying no to opportunities.
What really excites you about the future of investing?
I'm very excited to see the democratization of investing happening today with more capital going to new managers, as well as the formation of new investment entities and structures such as DAOs and rolling funds.
What scares you about the future of investing?
With the increase in new innovation and managers, one worry I have is maintaining returns as an industry. While I hope that the market is growing fast enough that returns will keep up, there is a possibility that market returns may not keep up, which could cause challenges downstream for these new structures to continue.
How do you feel about crypto as an investment?
The innovation happening in crypto is something that every investor should track. What's happening is rapid innovation, so the timing one should jump in depends on their comfort level. I'm personally trying to learn quickly, which is why I launched the PixelBeasts NFT collection to find friends to learn alongside.
What’s one quote or saying that inspires or challenges you?
"Be Water, My Friend.
Empty your mind.
Be formless, shapeless, like water.
You put water into a cup, it becomes the cup.
You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle.
You put it into a teapot, it becomes the teapot.
Now water can flow or it can crash.
Be water, my friend."
- Bruce Lee
Anything else to add?
Anyone interested in the democratization of venture capital and new sourcing strategies should follow our activity at Untapped Capital, and I'd like to invite any founders or investors interested in Web3 to join our community at PixelBeasts!
