You might think that large Japanese companies have trouble innovating.

Unfortunately if you believe that, you would be correct.

Recently, however, there are a few reasons for hope. The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem, and Japan Inc. now largely understands that their traditional R&D methods are broken, and are looking to startups for help and inspiration.

Corporate venturing (spinning out internal projects as startups) is one such approach. But it’s not an easy one. Today we sit down with Kenji Tateiwa and discuss the rewards and challenges of spinning Agile Energy X out of TEPCO.

We talk about why it’s hard to bring renewable energy onto the grid, how to nurture a startup inside very conservative organizations, and the future of corporate venturing in Japan.

It’s a great conversation, and I think you’ll enjoy it.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS | More

Show Notes

  • Why it’s hard to get more renewable energy onto the grid
  • Introduction to demand response and demand management
  • How to nurture a startup inside a conservative enterprise and how to spin out
  • The financial challenges in the core business model
  • The competitive landscape in energy services
  • Why its hard to raise funds as a corporate spin-out
  • Staffing challenges in corporate venturing
  • Maintaining strategic independence from the parent company
  • Can corporate venturing drive innovation back to the parent

Links from the Founder

Transcript

Welcome to Disrupting Japan, Straight Talk from Japan’s most innovative founders and VCs.

I’m Tim Romero and thanks for joining me.

Who says, large enterprises can’t innovate?!

Well, most people actually, and overall they’re right. The larger an organization becomes, the more barriers to innovation it puts in place. It’s almost a form of self-defense for the enterprise.

Well, today we sit down with Kenji Tateiwa of Agile Energy X, and we explore corporate venturing in Japan. Kenji was a decades long employee of TEPCO, Japan’s largest energy utility. And also my old employer. Kenji had an idea that he developed into a small internal project, but one that was simply not practical to run inside of TEPCO. So, he convinced leadership to give him the seed funding to spin it out into a new startup.

But there have been some bumps in the road, both the things that all founders face, like customer acquisition and also challenges unique to corporate venturing, like transitioning from a subsidiary to a true startup.

Kenji and I dive into the challenges of maintaining independence from the mothership and the mixed incentives of corporate ventures, how he convinced conservative management to take a chance on his startup idea. And why, despite all the challenges, this kind of corporate venturing is going to prove absolutely essential to innovation in Japan.

But, you know, Kenji tells that story much better than I can. So, let’s get right to the interview.

Interview

Tim: So, I’m sitting here with Kenji Tateiwa of Agile Energy X, who’s helping get more renewable energy onto Japan’s grid via Bitcoin mining. So, thanks for joining me.

Kenji: Yeah, you’re welcome, Tim. My pleasure.

Tim: Now I gave a really brief introduction to what you do, but I think you can explain it much better than I can. So, what is Agile Energy X doing, and what’s the problem you’re trying to solve?

Kenji: Yes, founded Agile Energy X as an inhouse startup within TEPCO with a mission to introduce as much renewable energy in Japan as possible using a flexible demand, including Bitcoin mining.

Tim: So, how does having flexible demand help get renewables onto the grid?

Kenji: So, the issue with renewable energy, and I mean variable renewable energy, like solar power and wind power cannot control how much power you supply from these energy sources.

Tim: When the wind’s blowing, the sun’s shining, you got a lot of electricity. And when it’s not, you don’t.

Kenji: That’s right. And the issue of electricity is you always have to match the demand with the supply or else the grid frequency will fluctuate, and in a severe case, it will lead to a blackout. And the issue of balancing the grid, it’s very challenging for the utilities. So, if there’s not much demand to soak up the power generated by these variable renewable energy you have to shut down the renewable energy resources, which leads to curtailment or a wasted energy.

Tim: Unlike you and me, most of our listeners have not worked for years in the energy industry, but the process of grid balancing is just fascinating. And I think people don’t appreciate what a wonder of engineering it is. Basically, every electron you push onto the grid anywhere has to be taken off somewhere else in real time. It’s moving almost to the speed of light. You just have to balance these power generation with the load caused by millions of millions of people randomly switching things on and off in real time. So, with Agile Energy X, when you’ve got excess energy, you spin up bitcoin mining?

Kenji: That’s right. The push for renewable energy has accelerated in Japan after the 2011 FIMA nuclear accident. Before that Japan used to depend about 25% in nuclear but then it dropped almost to 0% after 2011. And then the Japanese government pushed for renewable energy before the push for renewable energy power utilities. Primary function was to match the demand with the supply. So the power demand came first, and in order to match the demand, the fluctuation was controlled by mostly thermal power. But then we had this generation coming in independent of the demand. The utilities have now been tasked with something that they hadn’t done before to match the demand with a uncontrollable supply from the variable renewable energy.

Tim: So, suddenly they find that they have to manage both sides of the equation.

Kenji: That’s right. And the issue is the power demand is the utilities customers so you cannot control what the customer does, the customer behavior, it’s up to the customers. If they want to use electricity, it’s their choice. But there’s a flexible customer, like a Bitcoin miner. Utilities can ask Bitcoin miners to turn up or turn down to match the supply.

Tim: So, there’s two things there. First is traditional demand response. As you said, they never really manage the demand side too much, but there was always a case where if the load was too big, the power companies could call up factories and say, Hey, we’ll give you some money. And if you shut down for a while, are you taking advantage of demand response as well?

Kenji: Yes, utilities have been taking advantage of demand response to some extent. However, the economic incentive was not sufficient to have enough resources that could cope with the amount of variability of renewable power generation. And also in Japan, utilities don’t really want to force customers to change their behaviors, even if there are contracts that allows utilities to do. So, it’s a Japanese way of doing business.

Tim: Well, let’s talk a bit about what curtailment is and why it’s important.

Kenji: Back in 2018, the first curtailment of renewable energy started in Japan in the Kyushu Island, the southern part of Japan, where there’s abundant solar energy resources. The demand during the spring and fall during the daytime, when it’s sunny and a lot of solar power generation happening, but not much air conditioning demand, then curtailment happened, meaning the utilities had to ask the renewable generators to stop generating because there is not much demand. And if they continue to generate power, it’s going to overshoot the grid frequency.

Tim: Actually, in Japan, curtailment rates are still very, very low. It’s around like 2%, 2.5%.

Kenji: It’s increasing by the year. And depending on the location, the Kyushu area, it’s getting quite high. April or May, during the daytime, some solar power generators are asked to curtail more than 50% of the time during April, May.

Tim: And, and so with so much curtailment, it means that these project developers who want to put up wind farms, solar farms, can’t make money. So, that really slows down the renewable development. It slows down people putting in renewable power.

Kenji: Absolutely. So, it’s not just the issue of existing solar generators or wind generators. It hinders the new development because as you mentioned, it will make the renewable generators difficult to finance because of the curtailment. The banks will not be willing to lend money to set up a project financing, because the uncertainty with the curtailment is a big issue for the profitability of the renewable projects.

Tim: And so Agile Energy X acts as sort of a buyer of last resort. Instead of having to shut off the generation, you can say, hey, we’re located close by. We’ll use whatever energy you have and we’ll buy it from you.

Kenji: That’s right. So Bitcoin miners like ourselves, we can be the buyer of last resort, but as well as buyer of first resort. Meaning like nowadays, everyone’s trying to build AI data centers when it’s going to take time. And depending on if the solar or wind or whatever generators come into line before the data centers are built and ready to offtake the power, Bitcoin miners can first take the electricity from the generators. And if the AI data centers comes along, then Bitcoin miners can move on to another place.

Tim: Now this model’s been used in other places, Texas in particular. Is this the first in Japan?

Kenji: I think it’ll be the first in a large scale at least, however, just solving the curtailment issue, there is not enough profitability. So at least to my knowledge I don’t think there’s a Bitcoin miner that’s just using curtailed renewable energy in Japan.

Tim: I want to get back to the business model, because that’s really interesting. But before we do, I want to talk a bit about you. Before spinning out Agile Energy X, you were at TECO for like almost 25 years?

Kenji: 30 years.

Tim: 30 years. So, I mean, you were a nuclear engineer. You were involved with reactor design. Why the urge to create something this different and spin out, it seems like just a radically different career path for you.

Kenji: So, back in 2018, my day-to-day job was nuclear business. I came up with this idea of using Bitcoin mining as part of a TEPCO in-house training program to train future TEPCO executives. So, it was only a half year temporary assignment to come up with innovative ideas to save TEPCO from the aftermath of Fukushima, about 20 members were selected to go through these training program.

Tim: And so part of the training program was coming up with some kind of innovative…

Kenji: That’s right.

Tim: Interesting.

Kenji: Yes.

Tim: And so it was originally supposed to be six months. Why’d you decide to hang onto it?

Kenji: Because I firmly believe that this idea can actually save TEPCO. TEPCO has the obligation to recover the Fukushima local economy and go through with the decommissioning of Fukushima Dai-ichi, which will take hundreds of billions of dollars. TEPCO just continuing with the same utility business. It’s almost impossible recover the Fukushima economy.

Tim: So, between the pilot in 2018 and the spin out in 2022, how did you convince TEPCO to continue funding this and letting you develop this small project?

Kenji: So, first it took me two years to be transferred from the nuclear division to TEPCO power grid. So, the first two years I was on my own, I was doing the day-to-day nuclear job. And then I used my own funding to travel to Singapore to talk with the Bitcoin mining experts and so forth. So, I was just paying…

Tim: Really. Out of your own pocket? Yeah.

Kenji: Out of pocket. And then it took me two years to convince TEPCO executives. So, from TEPCO Power Grid 2020 to 2022, I had some budget to run proof of concept.

Tim: Wow. And so TEPCO Power Grid spun you out in 2022, and they’re still the only shareholder, right?

Kenji: That’s right. So, tell me about the staff. So, how many of the staff are from TEPCO? How many are new hires? How many from the startup ecosystem?

Kenji: All. All from TEPCO?

Tim: All from Teco? Yes.

Kenji: Myself and three other members. We are all seconded from TEPCO. However, we hired summer interns from the Indian Institute of Technology, six interns, all remote. We did a company presentation online to IIT students, and we had 300 applications. We screened down to six and had them in turn for three months. And at the end we chose two, and we plan to hire them this fall.

Tim: Okay. So, that’ll be your first external hires?

Kenji: Yes.

Tim: Awesome. Let’s dig into the business model here. So, even if you’re using the electricity that would otherwise be curtailed, the capex, the expenses are still huge. You need a lot of GPUs. How do you finance this? How do you keep capex under control?

Kenji: So, in the case of Bitcoin mining, we use ASICs. As you mentioned the capex is quite high. And just using curtailed renewable energy, the uptime will be very low. So, we’ll not be able to recoup the capex. That’s a big issue. So therefore, currently I don’t think anyone is doing such business in Japan. The plan for us, our business model to combine with the grid curtailment issue. Grid curtailment, it’s happening all around the world. But the peculiar issue with Japan is in the distributed grid, utilities are mandated to upgrade the grid to accommodate any amount of renewable energy. The just short period of time grid congestion happens, but the utilities has to upgrade distribution grid system.

Tim: And will power grid pay you for that energy service?

Kenji: That’s the issue. Right now they won’t because there’s no precedent of utilities paying a Bitcoin miner for the benefit of solving the grid congestion.

Tim: Yeah. It would seem like a tough thing to get the grid operator pay for because on one hand, they could just curtail the renewables or you can buy the cheap electricity from the renewables. So it seemed from the grid operator’s point of view that like why should they pay for something they can get for free?

Kenji: That’s the complicated part. For the grid operator, if they can curtail, they don’t have to pay us. That’s happening in the higher voltage transmission line grid system. But the lower voltage grid system, the grid operators don’t have the means to control all the smaller generators that are connected.

Tim: So, the distribution level, the substation level, okay, that makes sense. So right now with the current business model, what percentage of uptime do you need to be profitable? What is your needed capacity factor in energy term?

Kenji: Typically like in the US you need like 80% uptime, with a power cost lower than 5 cents per kilowatt hour. And that’s not possible in Japan. In our case, it will all depend on how much curtailment will happen and at what marginal cost we can purchase to be wasted power. So it’s zero marginal cost. So, we should be able to procure at a lower cost. And then when there’s no curtailment, how much revenue we can generate by solving the grid congestion issue. And we cannot really generalize that because it’ll depend on how much the utilities have to pay to upgrade a grid if we were not there.

Tim: But we can run basic assumptions. So, let’s assume that you’re buying power that would otherwise be curtailed. So, you can get it at 5 cents per kilowatt hour, which is insane by Japan standards, but it’s going to be wasted anyway. And let’s say curtailment goes as high as like, oh, I mean, some of what, like what we see in Scotland. The wind power being curtailed like 20%. Is that enough to turn a profit? I mean, if you need 80% capacity and you can only get up to 20 because if it gets too much, no one’s going to build them anyway. Because if they have to sell it at 5 cents per kilowatt hour, they’re not going to do that. How do you make this work?

Kenji: So, the way to think is not to start with a curtailment part of the business but start with a grid congestion part of the business. Solving the grid congestion issue value of Bitcoin miners like ourselves for the grid operator, we need to be a demand that can turn on and soak up excess power when we are ordered by the utilities. It could be just like 10 hours out of the year, but we have to be standing ready. It’s like a capacity payment.

Tim: Looking at the rates that Japan or other countries pay for, like energy services, like demand response, do you think those payments will be high enough to cover the times you’re not operating?

Kenji: Yes. It could be high enough because there’s a publicly available information that TEPCO power grid submits to the regulator saying how much TEPCO power grid is willing to invest in upgrading the substations and whatever to solve the grid congestion issue. And it’s like billions of dollars. And some portion of that can be saved by using Bitcoin mining.

Tim: Let’s talk a bit about competition. What about competition from batteries and other storage? Either like grid scale batteries that are buying electricity when it’s cheap and selling it when it’s expensive. Or batteries that are integrated with renewables and that can just store energy instead of being curtailed.

Kenji: To some extent, competition, but also complimentary as well. Batteries can charge excess power, but you have to discharge at some point. You cannot indefinitely continue to charge a Bitcoin miner you can indefinitely continue to run if excess power continues to be supplied. And also batteries, when you charge and discharge, 10 to 20% of energy is lost. So for a daily fluctuation there is value to batteries. However, seasonal like spring and fall, there’s too much renewable energy, which cannot be just controlled by batteries to make this seasonal shifting of demand supply gap.

Tim: Okay. Now you and the team have mining machines running in Gunma and Tochigi. How have those projects worked out? Like one of them I know is integrated with a solar farm, hasn’t been able to reduce curtailment.

Kenji: The project in Gunma, we have teamed up with TEPCO renewable power. They built their small 50 kilowatt solar power site and they had to wait for a few years before their solar generator could be connected to the grid. So, they asked us to be their off taker.

Tim: Oh, so this is while they’re waiting for the grid connection rather than as a curtailment.

Kenji: Yeah, that’s right. So again, it’s a different kind. If we were not there TEPCO renewable power would not be able to build the solar site.

Tim: Yeah. And the grid connections, that backlog is pretty big right now. Just about everywhere, it’s a long backlog.

Kenji: Yes, that’s right. If you have to wait for a few years to be connected, it’s lost opportunity and we can help them monetize for the few years before they can be connected to the grid.

Tim: Do you have any current projects deployed for the prevention of curtailment?

Kenji: Not yet. But we have been asked to help the solar generators who are struggling with curtailment. But the issue is at this moment, it’s not profitable for us. We have to combine it with grid congestion and others.

Tim: Okay. Let’s talk a bit about corporate spinouts as a vehicle for innovation in general because I think this is an important direction for Japan and TEPCO is an incredibly conservative company. I know I worked there for three years. So, I’m curious at how this is viewed internally. So far, all the staff are from TEPCO.

Kenji: Yes.

Tim: Are you and the team still TECO employees or did you like quit and join this subsidiary?

Kenji: No, we’re all TEPCO employees. And I think that that’s an issue. It’s very challenging for me to get outside funding. TEPCO is okay for us to raise funds outside of TEPCO, but VCs, they will not invest in us because the founder and CEO myself, I’m seconded from TEPCO. I don’t have any stocks or I don’t have any, any stock options or…

Tim: I mean, yeah, of course. That makes sense. You’re not really committed to the company yet.

Kenji: No.

Tim: Is that something you’re planning on changing or what are you going to do about this?

Kenji: Yeah. Good point. That’s the big issue right now. So, I actually told the TEPCO executives that if you really want Agile Energy X to be successful, you have to put me in a position that’s different from ordinary TEPCO managers. I have to maximize the corporate value of Agile Energy X. I want to have skin in the game to convince outside investors. So, at least let me have a stock option. I need to show the investors that my interests are aligned with maximizing the value of Agile Energy X. But there’s no precedent.

Tim: Well, I mean, there have been corporate spin outs, but there’s definitely no precedent at TEPCO. How does the rest of the team feel? Are they kind of split like some, like being a TEPCO employee and kind of playing at a startup for a few years, or some really committed to the mission? How does that look?

Kenji: I think they have mixed feelings.

Tim: It’s hard. I mean, it’s a big step.

Kenji: Yeah. But two of them, they loved what we do, but still they have the safety net of being able to return to TEPCO if we fail. So, I’m not sure if they’re committed enough to put all the skin in the game.

Tim: Well, I mean, that is the real test. It’s walking away from that safety net. On a day-to-day basis, how much independence do you have from TEPCO? Do you still have to run big strategic decisions by them or do they kind of let you operate the way you want to operate?

Kenji: So, that’s one of the struggles that I have.

Tim: It always is with these spin outs, it always is.

Kenji: Well, I always fight with the TEPCO guys that like, we are a separate entity. I’m the CEO, I should be able to do, not whatever that I want to do. We do have a board meeting obviously, so there are two board members from TEPCO, and the auditor is also from TEPCO, and they’re all senior position within TEPCO. Like not everything has to go through the board.

Tim: Yeah. I mean, there really is a pretty clear split between the responsibility of the board and the responsibility of the CEO. Having TEPCO as the sole shareholder, the majority of the board makes perfect sense. But yeah, a lot of enterprises want to micromanage the day-to-day decision making and that just doesn’t work.

Kenji: That’s right. TEPCO power grid allowed us to start as a spin out with the understanding that it will be very challenging to do it inside of TEPCO, so therefore setting up a separate entity and allowing independence and also the risk separation from TEPCO. But at the same time, some people think they should micromanage Agile Energy X.

Tim: I think it’s a hard habit for a lot of people to break. They’ve spent their whole career managing this way. They’ve never sat on a board. So, they’re treating it like a status meeting, right?

Kenji: That’s right. The difficulty is, in order to change the governance rather than me shouting, give me independence, the best thing I thought I could do was to get outside investor. So, we have to think about their interest as well. But I haven’t been able to overcome that hurdle because in order to get, I need to get…

Tim: It’s a bit of a chicken and an egg problem, right?

Kenji: That’s an egg problem for the past three and a half years.

Tim: So, what convinced TEPCO power grid to let you spin out rather than just staying as an internal project?

Kenji: Several things, I think. One is many TEPCO executives understand that it’s challenging for true innovation to happen within TEPCO power grid because all the rules and if something goes wrong, TEPCO power grid will have to bear the impact kind of reputational risk or whatever. So, it made sense to let us be a separate entity so that we could be like a sandbox. But there’s different thinking within the TEPCO executive team. Some think it’s still a hundred percent subsidiary, so it’s directly TEPCO power grids, reputational risk. But legally there’s a risk isolation and the risk is separated.

Tim: Legally it’s separate, you’re operating under a different brand. So, how much of this innovation is flowing back into TEPCO? Do you think this is going to develop into a new product line? Is there learnings and sharings about innovation that TEPCO can internalize?

Kenji: Not at this moment. However, the change in the mindset, many employees and also executives love what we’re doing. I have been able to demonstrate that TEPCO, the most conservative dinosaur organization in Japan can set up this kind of company, do innovative stuff.

Tim: You mentioned before the challenge of getting people to leave a big company like TEPCO to join a spin out or join a startup. I think right now in Japan, there still is this huge need for startup enterprise idea sharing. Like in the US people move very freely between big enterprises and startups, then back to big enterprise. But this is still rare in Japan. More and more people are leaving big companies to go to startups, but very few seem to be able to return. Is this changing? Is this something that that kind of weighs on you and the team when you’re deciding your future?

Kenji: Especially for TEPCO employees, if it’s a one-way ticket, obviously it’s going to make them hesitate. May maybe to some extent Japan is changing. TTEPCO also changing, but very slowly, slowly. But there have been some examples of TEPCO employees leaving, but returning to TEPCO, but only a handful.

Tim: No, but I think even if it’s only a handful, that’s a great start because not too long ago, 10, 20 years ago, it was almost impossible to come back mid-career. Even though it’s a small number, the fact that it’s possible is a great sign in a conservative company like TEPCO. It’s fascinating now, energy is finally like a real growth industry in Japan. I mean, not only AI but reshoring of a lot of manufacturing EVs or gaining steam in response to all of this, METI’s been really clear that they want more nuclear power on the grid. I mean, they’re targeting, what is it, 20% by 2030? Do you ever think of going back to your roots in nuclear engineering?

Kenji: Yes, but not within the nuclear division. But flexible demand can help revival of the nuclear industry as an off taker. And also there are many people within the demand side that understands the nuclear supply side.

Tim: So, planning on staying on the demand side for now.

Kenji: For now but also helping the nuclear supply side as well.

Tim: Well, listen, Kenji, before I let you go, I want to ask you what I call my magic wand question. And that is, if I gave you a magic wand and I told you that you could change one thing about Japan, anything at all, the education system, the conservative nature of large companies, how the power grid is being modernized, I mean anything at all to make it better for startups and innovation in Japan, what would you change?

Kenji: So, one thing, in-house startup like us, we are very privileged. And although I complain about a lot of things still, I have this safety net. And if I hadn’t and tried to start up a company using Bitcoin mining, I’m not sure if I would be able to get consent from my wife and my family.

Tim: No, that’s hard. So what kind of safety net could there be?

Kenji: Like, I’m seconded from TEPCO and although I don’t intend to return to TEPCO but I can return. The good thing is there is this steep net, but the bad thing is it doesn’t really help in-house startups to really grow. The incentive system is not there for the founder and CEO like myself to align the interest with the success of Agile Energy X. I am in a better position to do whatever TEPCO wants me to do, so that I can return to TEPCO and be promoted. That’s not the right incentive to have a successful inhouse startup. So, if I had a magic wand set up the right incentive system to make use of the fact that large companies have this safety net, but also align the interest with the founder and CEO so that they have the incentive to grow the startup as much as possible.

Tim: Well, yeah, I mean, it makes sense. It seems to be that a lot of the big companies, and to be fair, a lot of the staff at these spin outs sort of want to exist in this middle ground. Where I think it’d be much better for both sides if the companies really set these companies up to spin out, to operate differently, take on the risks and maybe not have a guaranteed path back, but have the incentives to go out and be successful on their own.

Kenji: So, what I’m thinking is we being the success story, if TEPCO could do it…

Tim: Anyone can do, do it. Yeah.

Kenji: Any Japanese company, any Japanese traditional company can do it.

Tim: Excellent. Well, Kenji, thanks so much for sitting down with me. I really appreciate it.

Kenji: You’re welcome. My pleasure, Tim. Thank you.

Outtro

And we’re back.

As Kenji pointed out, Bitcoin mining is a flexible load that can provide energy services is a tough business.

I mean, it can work in markets with cheap electricity, a lot of variable renewables and generous payments for energy services. But Texas has all of these, but Japan does not. Electricity is expensive, curtailment is low, and the energy ancillary services market is not particularly well developed here.

The important aspect of Kenji’s journey, however, is not the specific business model, but the process of spinning out from the parent and how corporate venturing could become an important driver of innovation in Japan.

Now, one of the biggest challenges in corporate venturing everywhere in the world is setting the right balance of risks and incentives. Now, Kenji and I talked about the frustrations of being managed like a subsidiary and not being properly incentivized to aggressively pursue the success of the venture. And corporate venture founders around the world share similar frustrations, but the gap in Japan, or at least in this case, might be even bigger than Kenji and TEPCO management realize.

Kenji and the team never actually left TEPCO to join a startup. They’re still employees. With Japan’s low labor mobility and less than accepting view of failure. I don’t think anyone can blame them for not wanting to give that up.

And yet, this turns out to be not so much a safety net as it is a gill net.

The constant risk of real failure with consequences is stressful to be sure, but it provides a great deal of the motivation and the urgency that fuels startup success. The fact that a founder’s operating without a net is a big part of what convinces investors and staff to take a risk on pursuing that founder’s dreams.

Despite all these challenges, however, what Kenji and the team are doing is important. It’s an essential step to solving one of Japan’s biggest bottlenecks in B2B startup innovation. You see in the US and in Europe, most successful industrial startups are founded by people with decades of experience in their industry. Founders who understand both the current problems and the previous failed attempts to solve them. They have enough confidence in their ideas to quit lucrative jobs and to launch startups to solve these problems.

These are the people who drive meaningful innovation. In Japan, such people are still rare, and because of that startup innovation continues to lag here. But perhaps the wheels are beginning to turn. Kenji and his team might well be blazing a trail for others in Japan to follow.

 

 

If you want to talk more about energy startups or corporate venturing, Kenji, and I would love to talk with you. So come by disruptingjapan.com/show 248 and let’s talk about it. And if you enjoy disrupting Japan, please share a link online or just, you know, tell people about it. Disrupting Japan is free forever and letting people know about it is the absolute best way you can support the podcast. But most of all, thanks for listening and thank you for letting people interested in Japanese startups and VCs know about the show.

I’m Tim Romero and thanks for listening to Disrupting Japan.