Murat Aktihanoglu Remarkable Ventures
Co-Founder and Managing Partner
Biography

Murat Aktihanoglu is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Remarkable Ventures, Remarkable Ventures Climate and ERA in New York City. A venture capitalist since 2011, Murat has invested in over 375 early-stage tech and climate companies with a combined market cap of $12+ billion. He previously founded Centrl and the nonprofit Entrepreneurs Roundtable, fostering New York's startup community through monthly investor meetings. Murat co-authored Location-Aware Applications in 2011 and has held engineering roles at Sony and Silicon Graphics. Murat is a sought-after speaker at technology and entrepreneurship conferences worldwide. He serves as a Council Member for the U.S.-Japan Council, a board member for the Belgian American Chamber of Commerce, and an Ambassador for the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. Additionally, he advises organizations such as the MIT Enterprise Forum and mentors various startup programs globally. He holds an M.S. in Computer Science from Bilkent University.

https://www.remarkable.vc/
Eric Benhamou Benhamou Global Ventures
Founder & General Partner
Biography

Eric Benhamou has over 40 years of experience in the IT industry, including 16 years in venture capital. He founded Benhamou Global Ventures (BGV) in 2004, investing in early-stage Silicon Valley startups in enterprise and telecom sectors. His notable investments include Swan Labs (F5), Dasient (Twitter), and Voltaire (Mellanox). He currently serves on the boards of Grid Dynamics, Virtana, and Totango. As former CEO and Chairman of 3Com and Palm, he grew 3Com’s revenue 25-fold and led it into the Fortune Global 500. Throughout his career, he has participated in eight IPOs and 37 M&A transactions.

https://benhamouglobalventures.com/team-member/eric-benhamou/
Ashley Grosh Breakthrough Energy
Vice President
Biography

Ashley has spent the entirety of her nearly two-decade career working at the intersection of finance and climate innovation. Prior to joining Breakthrough Energy as a Vice President to lead the Breakthrough Energy Discovery program, she spent 15 years at Wells Fargo as a thought leader working across several business units, supporting overall ESG, Cleantech Commercial Banking, and Sustainable Finance strategies. At Wells she pioneered a $100 million impact fund called the Innovation Incubator (IN2), focused on speeding up the path to market for early-stage clean technologies. IN2 program’s 74 portfolio companies have gone on to raise $2.6B in follow on funding from external sources.
Today, Ashley leads Breakthrough Energy Discovery, an early-stage global platform advancing climate technology innovation and research. Discovery focuses on pre-venture innovation-filling critical scientific gaps where new solutions can deliver outsized impact across five grand challenge areas: Agriculture, Manufacturing, Buildings, Electricity, and Transportation.
Through its three core programs-Fellows, Workshops, and Ecosystems-Discovery provides funding, tailored technical and company building support, and connections across a global network to help innovators turn bold ideas into scalable solutions. Since its launch in 2021, the program has supported 180 Fellows across 80 companies in 19 countries, catalyzing more than $475M in follow-on capital and creating over 550 jobs.
In this role, Ashley continues to build deep connections across the clean tech ecosystem-working with investors, entrepreneurs, universities, incubators, and national labs to drive transformative innovation.
Grosh earned a B.A. degree in Economics and a Business minor from the University of Colorado at Boulder, as a student athlete on the CU NCAA Division One women’s soccer team. She holds a Certified Financial Planning certificate from DePaul University and a Renewable Energy Certificate from Leeds School of Business at CU Boulder.
In 2017, Grosh was recognized as a ’40 Under 40’ winner in Colorado and also recognized that year as a ‘Top Women in Energy’ in the Denver Business Journal.
Ashley and her family reside in Chicago, Illinois. Outside of work, she enjoys playing racquet sports, cooking, and cheering on her children at their sporting events.

https://www.breakthroughenergy.org/
Yumiko Murakami MPower Partners Fund L.P.
General Partner
Biography

Yumiko is the former head of the OECD Tokyo Centre. Prior to the OECD, she worked for 20 years in the global financial industry, mostly as a Managing Director at Goldman Sachs in New York, London and Tokyo. She is a leading authority on a wide range of economic policy issues such as corporate governance, tax guidelines, diversity, education, trade and innovation. She sits on several Government advisory panels, including the Prime Minister’s panel on “the New Form of Capitalism”. Yumiko has an MBA from Harvard Business School, MA from Stanford University and BA from Sophia University.

https://www.mpower-partners.com/
Koichiro Nakamura Sozo Ventures
Co-Founder and Managing Director
Biography

Koichiro “Koh” Nakamura is a Founder and Managing Director of Sozo Ventures. He was first Japanese in the Forbes Midas List 100, global Venture Capitalists top 100 Ranking in 2021,2022,2023,2024 and 2025 for investments in Coinbase and Palantir.
Sozo Ventures is known for the investment with Square, Zoom, Palantir, Applied Intuition and among others.
He also serve as a Council Member at the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at University of Chicago. He was an early pioneer in Japan’s IT scene as a member of the founding team of Yahoo Japan, and led the seed investment into Scigineer (TSE:6031). He co-founded Sozo Ventures in 2012 to guide globally ambitious founders looking to maximize Japan and Asian expansion opportunities.
He graduated from Waseda University, then received an MBA from the University of Chicago. He was a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 12 and received the Jeff Timmons Memorial Award in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the program.

https://www.sozoventures.com

Masahiko Homma Incubate Fund Co.,Ltd
General Partner
Biography

In 1998, Masahiko joined JAFCO Co., Ltd., where he was involved in investments in Silicon Valley and Israeli internet companies. He also established joint ventures and helped them expand into Japan. In 2001, he joined Accenture Co., Ltd. and worked in corporate development and venture capital. In 2003, he joined Works Capital Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Corporation, where he invested in and supported companies including MonotaRO from startup to IPO. In 2007, He established Core People Partners, a VC fund specializing in seed stage investments. In 2010, Masahiko co-founded Incubate Fund and is a General Partner. He is the head of overseas investment which currently focuses on Southeast Asia, India, and the US. He also manages the SMBC Asia Rising Fund, hosts the Asia Leaders Summit, and serves as a committee chairman for the Japan Association of Corporate Executives (Keizai Doyukai), and as a visiting professor at Kindai University.

https://incubatefund.com/en/
Yukiko Kato SBI Investment Co., Ltd. Director & Executive Officer, Head of Corporate Venture Capital Department
Biography

After working in the Investment Banking Division at ING Securities, she participated in the establishment of Bio Vision Capital, a venture capital firm within SBI Group specializing in biotechnology and healthcare.
In 2005, she transferred to SBI Investment Co., Ltd., where she was involved in domestic and international startup investment and management advice.
Since 2016, she has been managing CVC funds jointly established with corporate partners in CVC Division of SBI Investment, supporting the creation of new businesses through open innovation. She has held her current position since 2023.
In 2015, she was ranked No. 1 on the Forbes Japan Midas List (the most influential venture capital investors in Japan).
She also serves as a member of the Industry-Academia Collaboration Subcommittee within the Open Innovation Committee of the Japan Venture Capital Association (JVCA).

https://www.sbinvestment.co.jp/en/
Mari Kogiso SDG Impact Japan
Co CEO
Biography

Mari is a sustainable finance expert with extensive background in inclusive business, sustainable finance, and entrepreneurship. Most recently, Mari founded the SDG Impact Japan to promote ESG and impact finance in Japan and Asia and serve as CoCEO. Before the SDG Impact Japan, She was the global head of diversity and human rights of the Fastretailing Group. Before FR, she led the establishment of the Asia Women Impact Fund, USD 100 million Impact Fund at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, with the objective to catalyze capital to improve the lives of women and remove gender barriers in Asia. Mari held various senior positions at the World Bank Group in Washington DC and Tokyo including the representative of the MIGA Tokyo.
She holds a B.A. in Economics from the University of Tokyo and an M.A. in Environment and Finance from The Fletcher School at Tufts University. She is an outside director of Mitsubishi Corporation and Terumo Corporation and . She also serves on many other government and public sector committees and as an ESG advisor to corporations.

https://sdgimpactjapan.com/
Angela Lee 37 ANGELS Founder,
CEO
Biography

Angela Lee teaches venture capital, leadership, and strategy courses at CBS. She brings 20 years of innovation, strategy, and entrepreneurship experience to the classroom. She started her career in product management and then moved into strategy consulting at McKinsey. Angela is passionate about entrepreneurship and has started several companies in the education sector. She is a startup investor and the founder of 37 Angels, an investing network that has evaluated 15000 startups, invested in 80, and activates new investors through a startup investment boot camp.
Angela has spoken at the White House and NASA and is a sought-after expert on CNBC, Bloomberg TV, MSNBC, and Fox Business. She was recognized by Inc. as one of 17 Inspiring Women to Watch in 2017, by Entrepreneur Magazine as one of 6 Innovative Women to Watch in 2015, and by Craine’s as a Notable Women in Tech in 2019. In 2020, she was awarded the Dean's Award for Teaching Excellence at Columbia Business School. Angela received her BA from the University of California, Berkeley, and her MBA from Columbia Business School.

https://www.37angels.com/
Jingqian Ma Plug and Play Japan
Partner・Head of Investment
Biography

After graduating from university, Jingqian Ma began his career at EY, where he was involved in consulting services related to transfer pricing, international expansion, and M&A. He later joined Morgan Stanley MUFG Securities before moving to SBI Investment in 2019. At SBI, he focused on investing in fintech, AI, cybersecurity, and SaaS, both in domestic and international ventures. As a lead investor, he served as a board member for several portfolio companies, guiding them through hands-on support toward successful exits, including IPOs and M&A. He was also involved in managing multiple CVC funds. In 2021, he joined Plug and Play Ventures as the Head of Ventures, overseeing all venture investment activities at Plug and Play Japan.

https://japan.plugandplaytechcenter.com/investments/

SusHi Tech Challenge 2026 Pitch Contest

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SusHi Tech Challenge 2026 Pitch Contest

What is SusHi Tech Challenge 2026

We will host the “SusHi Tech Challenge 2026,” a startup pitch contest focused on “Sustainable High City Tech (SusHi Tech)”.
The startup that wins the Grand Prize will receive a cash award of ¥10 million yen.
Semi-finalists and finalists will be invited to a networking opportunity with the judges, including leading venture capitalists from Japan and abroad.

View the details

Date and time: Semifinal: Monday, April 27, 2026
Final: Tuesday, April 28, 2026

Venue: Tokyo Big Sight, West Halls 1,2,3,4, etc.
3-11-1 Ariake, Koto-ku, Tokyo 135-0063, Japan

Language: English (all materials, pitches, and communication must be in English)

Application Requirement: • Possessing new technologies or business models with growth potential
• The existence of a product or service
• The business content align with SusHi Tech Tokyo's concept (Realizing sustainable cities through high technology)
• Participation in the pitch contest is possible at the Venue throughout the 2-day event
• Booth exhibition is possible at the Venue throughout the 3-day event

Prize/Award: • The winning company will receive a prize of 10 million yen.
• We may invite you to exhibit or speak at related events hosted by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. We appreciate your cooperation.
• The 20 companies advancing to the semifinals will have the opportunity to promote their businesses to participating VCs and large corporations through pitches at the Venue.
• Companies that pass the second evaluation will have their booth exhibition fee (¥250,001) waived.
Etc.

Benefit: Semi-finalists and finalists will be invited to a networking opportunity with the judges.

Apply for pitch contest

Judges

Judges for Finals Judges for Semi-Finals pre-screener

Judges for Finals

Judges for Semi-Finals

Pre-screeners