TEAM
"Our diverse team help founders like a co-founding investor across marketing, design, strategy and GTM to Japan."
Kazuki Notsu
Co-Founder & General Partner
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Originally from Japan, Kazuki worked at Google, at the company’s headquarters in Mountain View, as a growth marketing lead. Before that, he was the manager of SMB marketing in Google Japan. During his tenure at Google, he started a new division as the head of marketing innovation to support and accelerate startups.
Prior to Google, Kazuki was a senior consultant at Dentsu and the Boston Consultant group. He led global marketing strategies and business development for over 30 countries, and strategized corporate strategies for for healthcare, CPG and media industries.
Kazuki holds a bachelor’s degree in international management and a minor in physics from Kyoto University and graduated from executive MBA at Wharton.
Currently, Kazuki is the co-lead of the ex. Googler community Xoogler.co, with over 10K+founders and investors, and invests in B2B seed stage startups. He is also an Advisory Board member of Vela Partners.
Yigit Ihlamur
Advisor
Prior to Vela, Yigit Ihlamur worked in Google’s Cloud division, at the company’s headquarters in Mountain View, on product management, strategy, operations, growth, startup and reseller partnerships.
Yigit’s tenure at Google also included several years spent in the company’s European headquarters in Dublin, working on technical operations for G Suite.
Yigit received his master’s degree in computer science with a focus on artificial intelligence and machine learning from the University of Oxford, and his industrial engineering degree from Koç University.
As one of the founders of Vela Partners, he currently works as a general partner.
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Masahiko Honma
Co-Founder & General Partner
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Situated in Japan, Masahiko is the co-founder of Incubate Fund and is a general partner of the fund. Currently, Masahiko is the head of overseas investment across Southeast Asia, India, and US.
Before leading the founding of Incubate Fund, he established Core People Partner, a VC fund specializing in seed stage investment in 2007. He also played a key role in in Mitsubishi Corporation's works Capital Co., Ltd, where he invested in MonotaRO and venture Republic, which became public.
Prior to Mitsubishi, Masahiko was part of the corporate development and venture capital department in Accenture Co. Ltd. He previously worked at JAFCO Co., Ltd, where he was involved in investments in Silicon Valley and Israeli internet companies, established JV, and help them expand into Japan.
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