Ivan Zhao is Co-founder and CEO of Notion, the all-in-one workspace for notes, documents, wikis, projects, and collaboration. A designer by training, Ivan founded the company in 2016 to make it possible for everyone in the world to create the tools they need without knowing how to code. Before Notion, he worked in product design at digital education startup Inkling. He graduated from the University of British Columbia and resides in San Francisco.

‍

Natsuki leads DNX's Portfolio Platform. She joined the firm in 2015 and built the firm's operational process by leveraging her network within the venture world. Since then, she's been focusing on building the firm's portfolio platform team, where she supports early-stage portfolio companies.

Before joining DNX, Natsuki was a Marketing & Sales specialist at Nissan Motors HQ in Japan, overseeing the dealerships to increase Nissan's sales volume in the domestic market. Natsuki holds a BA in Sociology from Keio University in Tokyo.

As a happy transplant to the Bay Area, Natsuki spends her weekends hiking, running, and discovering great restaurants.

‍

After graduating from the University of Tokyo's Faculty of Law, he worked at McKinsey & Company, specializing in the optimization of procurement, manufacturing and development, as well as acquisition and post-acquisition integration management in the manufacturing and high-tech sectors, where he was involved in a company-wide transformation project. After working on projects in the U.K., India, and the U.S., he founded Kakehashi Inc.

Founder of XICA.  Graduate of Keio University, and founded XICA while at university.  Yoshiaki—formerly a professional bandsman between age of 12 to 24 founded XICA to eliminate “avoidable tragedies through power of statistics and insights”.  The mission comes from his childhood experience from bankruptcy of his father’s workplace.

‍

After Joining Mitsubishi Corporation, he was involved in automotive trading, planning and executing sales/marketing initiatives in overseas markets, cross-border investment deals and new company formations, large government bidding deals, M&A deals, among others. Founded RevComm Inc., in July 2017, that offers “MiiTel," a service that uses artificial intelligence to visualize sales calls and call center operations.  RevComm has expanded to 10,000 users in just a year and a half.

Founder of XICA.  Graduate of Keio University, and founded XICA while at university.  Yoshiaki—formerly a professional bandsman between age of 12 to 24 founded XICA to eliminate “avoidable tragedies through power of statistics and insights”.  The mission comes from his childhood experience from bankruptcy of his father’s workplace.

‍

Akira has been in the venture business for 20 years in the US and Japan, and backed more than 50 enterprise software start-ups: TeamSpirit (TSE Mothers 4397), Money Foward (TSE Mothers 3994), Sansan (TSE Mothers 4443), Hottolink (TSE Mothers 3680), TerraSky (TSE Mothers 3915), SynergyMarketing (Acquired by Yahoo Japan), 1st Holdings (Acquired by Orix), Shanon (TSE Mothers 3976), Kabuku (Acquired by Futaba Corporation), Beceem Communications (acquired by Broadcom) and Smart Signal (acquired by GE Intelligent Platforms) etc.).

Akira currently serves on the boards of Money Forward (TSE Mothers 3994), FROM SCRATCH, Andpad, XICA, toBe Marketing, UPWARD, Kakehashi, Mazrica, Trend Express, Adacotech, Creadits, and Knowledge Work and is a board observer at Folio, Studist, Spacely, Flect, Alphaus, HERP, Resily, Alp, Techtouch and Tutorial.

Before joining DNX Ventures, Akira was Japan Head at Salesforce Ventures and Globespan Capital Partners. Prior to Globespan, Akira spent 5 years at Mitsui & Co., Ltd and led the company's venture capital activities both in the US and Japan. He was Co-Founder & Director of Mitsui Technology Investment Group in Silicon Valley. Previously, Akira spent 5 years at Fujitsu Limited in various roles including Corporate Development, Corporate Strategy, and Sales.

Akira is a published author of The Corporate Venture Capital Handbook, Chuokeizai-sha, Inc.  Akira holds an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, a BA and Ph.D. in Technology Management from Doshisha University and completed Executive Management Program at University of Tokyo (Spring 2017)