James is the head of 500 Startups’ $30m fund for Japan, and recently listed in Forbes Asia’s 30 under 30. Prior to 500 Startups, James covered early stage international investments for DeNA's venture arm, focusing on Silicon Valley and select countries in Asia. He drove DeNA's first investments in Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, and India. His investments have raised from Andreessen Horowitz, Khosla Impact (Vinod Khosla), Innovation Endeavors (Eric Schmidt), Global Founders Capital (Rocket Internet), and Biz Stone (co-founder of Twitter). Before DeNA, he was the founding CEO of STORYS.JP, the "Medium.com of Japan". The site is the birthplace of the Amazon #1 bestseller, “The Invincible Blonde Gal,” which sold over 300,000 copies in the first 3 months. The motion picture went on to gross about $23 million at the box office. In another life, he worked at J.P. Morgan in New York and Tokyo.