E114: Yohei Nakajima (General Partner, Untapped Capital)

The Desi VC with Akash Bhat

Yohei Nakajima is the General Partner at Untapped Capital, a pre-seed and seed-stage focused fund investing in under-represented founders in the US. At Untapped Capital, the sweet spot is investing $100k-$250k checks into startups based raising at $3-7m in valuation.

Yohei has been supporting early-stage startups for 15 years, originally starting on the community side organizing events and educational courses for founders out of coworking spaces. He has spent the last 7 on the investing side, initially at Techstars where he helped spin up the Disney Accelerator alongside The Walt Disney Company, followed by his role as Director of Pipeline, supporting all 30+ Techstars accelerator programs in recruiting the best startups worldwide. Prior to Untapped, he was at Scrum Ventures, where he led the development of Scrum Studio, designing, leading, and overseeing our partner programs with Nintendo, Dentsu, Panasonic.

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Episode Notes:

1. Intro (2:38)
2. Why venture? (3:52)
3. Thesis origin and resonance with founders (8:04)
4. Yohei's builder persona and its influence on his investor persona (16:03)
5. Sourcing through outbound (23:40)
6. Non-negotiables as an investor (28:40)
7. Knowledge sharing as a fund manager (33:34)
8. Future of Untapped Capital (35:15)
9. LP's learnings from Yohei (36:26)
10. Advice for emerging fund managers (39:26)
11. Fundraising surprises as a fund manager (42:05)
12. Learnings from portfolio founders in early stages (44:52)
13. Yohei's decision-making process and framework (48:48)
14. Advice for his younger self (50:30)

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Social Links:

Untapped Capital on Twitter: https://twitter.com/UntappedVC

Yohei on Twitter: https://twitter.com/yoheinakajima

Podcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thedesi_vc

Akash Bhat on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bhatvakash

Podcast on Instagram: https://instagram.com/thedesivc

Akash Bhat on Instagram: https://instagram.com/bhatvakash