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Meet the Team: Nagisa Sakurai

Meet the Team: Nagisa Sakurai

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We’re pleased to welcome Nagisa Sakurai, who is joining as a Director and as Silicon Foundry’s first Asia-based team member. With a background spanning life sciences, regenerative medicine, corporate venture capital, and corporate innovation, Nagisa brings a multidisciplinary perspective to emerging technologies and global innovation ecosystems. Her experience includes roles across research institutions and industry organizations, including City of Hope Cancer Center, Washington University in St. Louis, and Astellas Pharma. At Silicon Foundry, Nagisa will help strengthen collaboration between Japanese and global innovation ecosystems, working with corporates, startups, and investors to navigate emerging technologies and unlock cross-border opportunities. We recently sat down with Nagisa to learn more about her career journey, Japan’s evolving startup ecosystem, and the future of innovation across Asia and beyond. Press play to listen to this conversation https://sifoundry.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/ElevenLabs_MTT_Nagisa_Sakurai.mp3 To start from the very beginning, what would you say first sparked your interest in innovation, venture, or working at the intersection of technology and business? What first got me interested in innovation and the intersection of technology and business was realizing that even great technologies do not automatically create impact unless someone can connect the science and business. During my time working in life sciences, a pivotal moment was when I was evaluating a delivery technology related to cell therapy. Since I had spent almost ten years in that area, I immediately felt the technology had strong potential to become important in the future of cell therapy. However, people on the business side could not clearly see how the technology would create business value. That experience surprised me because we were looking at the same technology inside the same company, but seeing completely different things. Throughout my career, I’ve found that there is a limited number of people who can work between the intersection of science and business, especially when I worked in CVC and corporate innovation. Venture ecosystems often amplify certain technology trends, and startups move very quickly toward those trends, but not corporates. They also have to think about existing businesses, internal priorities, timing, and organizational structure. So I recognized that if we want innovation ecosystems to work well, we need people who can understand and translate between those different worlds. That is still the part of innovation I find the most interesting today. As Silicon Foundry’s first Asia-based team member, what excites you most about this role, and what opportunities do you hope to unlock? I’m excited to help connect Japanese and Asian companies more closely with the global innovation ecosystem, and to bring more visibility to the strengths and perspectives coming from this region. Japanese companies have incredibly strong technical capabilities and deep industry expertise, but there is still a lot of opportunity to strengthen collaboration with global startups and emerging technology ecosystems. At the same time, many startups outside Japan do not fully understand the Japanese market, how Japanese companies make decisions, or what kinds of problems enterprises are actually trying to solve. Because I have worked across life sciences and corporate innovation, I’ve seen how different players operate with very different timelines, incentives, and expectations. Your background spans life sciences as well as venture and corporate innovation. How does that shape the way you evaluate new technologies or opportunities? Does that experience give you a different lens when assessing what will scale or create real impact? My background helps me evaluate both technologies from a technical perspective and how innovation gets adopted and scaled in the real world. Through my experience in life sciences, I saw how long and complex the path can be from breakthrough research to real societal impact. Through my experience in venture ecosystems, I recognized how certain technology trends can attract attention and capital very quickly. But corporates do not always move on the same timeline due to their broad priorities. So when I evaluate new technologies or opportunities, I tend to look not only at whether the technology itself is impressive, but also who will adopt it, whether organizations are ready for it, whether the market timing is right, and how it’ll fit into existing industry structures. Ultimately, I believe technologies scale when these various factors come together at the same time. From your perspective, where do you think Japan is making the most progress in expanding its tech ecosystem, and where is there still room for improvement? The ecosystem has changed significantly over the past five to ten years, but the progress really depends on the ...
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