Kazu Umeda
Founding Partner, SIIF Impact Capital, Inc.
A founder shaped not only by experience, but by a philosophy of how innovation should serve society.
Kazu Umeda’s path to founding SIIFIC did not begin with a business plan. It began far earlier—with a young scientist fascinated by the intricacy of life itself. Trained in molecular and cellular biology, he cultivated a careful eye for the unseen: mechanisms, processes, and the quiet forces that shape outcomes long before they are visible.
In many ways, this sensibility became the foundation of his philosophy as a venture capitalist.
A journey through ecosystems, not industries
Drawn to the world of venture capital precisely because it demanded breadth—science, patents, law, finance, communication, imagination—Kazu joined Japan Asia Investment Co., Ltd. in the early 2000s. His investments spanned Japan, the US, Singapore, Indonesia, and Thailand, training him to see innovation not as isolated technologies, but as the product of ecosystems, cultures, and people.
His time at the Innovation Network Corporation of Japan deepened this view. Supporting iPS cell–related ventures shortly after the field earned a Nobel Prize, and building a dedicated medical-device venture initiative, he experienced first-hand how scientific progress becomes societal progress only when paired with courageous entrepreneurship.
Defining the true nature of a “SEEDS”
In 2016, Umeda founded M3’s corporate venture arm and created the “Seed Rocket Fund,” focusing on the earliest and most fragile stages of company creation. Two of its portfolio companies were ones he himself helped to build.
These years reshaped his understanding of what a “SEEDS” truly are—not merely an idea or a technology, but a possibility that must be nurtured with patience, imagination, and belief.
This philosophy lives on in SIIFIC’s investment criteria today.
A realisation that changed his direction
By 2022, after completing distributions to the Seed Rocket Fund’s expanded group of investors, Kazu began to reflect on what he had witnessed over two decades.
Startups, especially in healthcare and life sciences, too often negotiate from a position of vulnerability. Cash constraints can cause even large corporates and financial institutions to underestimate them.
What struck him was this:
If society cannot recognise the value a startup creates beyond revenue—its contribution to wellbeing, access, equity—then the startup is not truly seen.
And when value is invisible, it cannot be rewarded.
Kazu became convinced that impact measurement was not a reporting exercise but a way of restoring fairness. By making a startup’s value—and its journey—visible, impact could strengthen its negotiating position, attract better capital, and ultimately maximise financial returns.
Impact, in other words, was not a constraint.
It was a source of power.
The meeting that sparked SIIFIC
At precisely this moment of clarity, he reconnected with Reiri, who had independently arrived at a similar conviction. They shared the belief that wellness—human wellbeing in its broadest, most inclusive sense—would be the defining investment frontier for the next generation.
And so, in September 2022, SIIFIC was born:
a venture capital firm built on the idea that innovation must contribute to a society where everyone can live better.
The founder behind the philosophy
Away from spreadsheets and term sheets, Kazu has surfed for more than thirty years—a practice that mirrors his investment ethos: reading currents, sensing timing, respecting nature, and understanding that momentum cannot be forced.
Since his twenties, he has also been quietly writing science fiction, collecting worlds and ideas in notebooks. Perhaps this is why he sees startups not just as businesses, but as stories—each with its own arc, protagonists, tensions, and potential for transformation.