Richard Melmon began his career in Silicon Valley with Hewlett Packard in 1970.  Finding HP a wonderful, albeit dull company, he quickly left, opting to get his MBA from Stanford.  In 1972, while at Stanford, he wrote his required class thesis on the premise that the microprocessor, then nascent, and only recently introduced, would take over the entire computer value chain.   He leveraged that insight into a job with its inventor, Intel Corporation, from which he participated in the beginnings of the revolution still playing out, more than four decades later.  At Intel, he launched Microma, the world’s first digital watch, which forever set his perspective on how complex electronic devices would find their way into the world of the consumer.  With this background, he subsequently joined Regis McKenna, Inc., a marketing firm, from which he he had the opportunity to play a major role in the launch of Apple Computer.  At McKenna, he also had the opportunity to launch the world's first spreadsheet, VisiCalc, which arguably was the software product that truly launched the personal computer revolution.  Somewhat later, in 1982, he and Trip Hawkins founded Electronic Arts.  Squabbles between he and his partner occasioned him leaving EA only a few years after its founding, and he went on to found a high tech ad agency, and Objective Software, which developed Spreadbase, a relational database with a spreadsheet front end.  In 1995, he rejoined McKenna, where he met and began working with Hiroshi Menjo, serving enterprises in Japan as they began contemplating the Internet.  This led them to found NSV Wolf Capital in 2002. The partnership continued to focus its consulting on helping Japanese companies understand the disruptions coming with the rise of the Internet, while also making seed stage investments in what was, in hindsight, the beginnings of the Web 2.0 transformation.  In 2010, NSV Wolf Capital created its first of our strategic VC funds with Japanese LPs.

Education

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY
B.A., PHYSICS, 1962

STANFORD UNIVERSITY
M.B.A., 1973

Hiroshi Menjo began his career with Konica in Tokyo as a key engineer for their photo film products.  Upon realizing the possible disruption of the film industry by electronic systems, he researched electronic materials at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, followed by MIT Microelectronics Labs.  He then joined the Boston Consulting Group in Tokyo, working with U.S. and European clients as well as Japanese technology companies to develop corporate and business strategies.  Hiroshi left Japan and moved to Silicon Valley in 1991.  He assisted a variety of North American technology startups with the development and implementation of Japan entry strategies, as well as strategic alliances with Japanese companies.  He then joined The McKenna Group, a premier high-tech business consulting firm founded by Regis McKenna, to lead the Japan Practice. In this, he established his reputation in Japan as an innovation expert based on his deep understanding of entrepreneurism in Silicon Valley. It is here he met Richard Melmon, subsequently co-founding NSV Wolf Capital.  Hiroshi has co-authored number of business books in Japan. Two of them were the best sellers.  He is also a regular columnist for Nikkei, and Diamond, the leading business journal in Japan.

Education

UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO
B.S. Chemistry, 1976

M.S. Physical Chemistry, 1978

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
M.S. Electronic Materials, 1985

Masami Kato began his career at Sony Corporation as product manager on cutting-edge digital consumer electronics. He worked on VAIO laptop computers, coordinating product creation, as well as devising product introduction plans for more than ten European countries. Following his career at Sony, he joined McKinsey's Tokyo office as a management consultant to assist Japanese corporations in projects including strategy formation, corporate branding, procurement optimization, and fixed-capital usage optimization.  He joined NSV Wolf Capital in 2007 to engage with Silicon Valley to aid clients in creating new services and products for the digital network era. In these projects he was actively involved in the conceptualization and creation of new business by leveraging insights and technologies born in the Silicon Valley. He is also co-founder and advisor of VentureScanner, an NSV spin-out startups.

Education

UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
B.Comm., 1996

INSEAD
M.B.A.,2004

Dan Kimerling began his career as a journalist and analyst at TechCrunch, the leading technology website on the Internet until its acquisition by AOL. He also ran their well-regarded conference business for two years. He then joined Giftly, a stored value technology company acquired by GiftCards.com, as the first employee and Chief Operating Officer.  He then co-founded and was CEO of Standard Treasury, a Y Combinator company, that was the leading provider of API solutions to the financial services community.   Through the acquisition of Standard Treasury, he joined Silicon Valley Bank as senior executive, responsible for API Banking, Open Platform, and Global Research and Development. Dan is now a Partner at NSV Wolf Capital.  Dan is also co-founder and General Partner at Deciens, the leading seed stage Fintech VC firm.

Education

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
A.B., M.A. with Honors, 2008
 

Born and raised in Japan, Naoki has strong passions in both technology and finance. Naoki invested in over 40 startups in the Bay Area in his first year as an angel investor, which led him to join NSV as a venture capitalist. After being a researcher at Stanford University, Naoki founded AppGrooves, a 500 Startups company that provided one of the largest App Store Optimization tools for mobile app developers with $6.5m raised. Naoki also started “Helping you to read financial statements”, a paid newsletter that grew to thousands of paid subscribers, then was published as a bestseller book in Japan and was eventually acquired.Naoki started his career at Rakuten, where he directly worked with the CEO and initiated several new services, investments, joint ventures and M&As as the youngest Executive Officer. Naoki was also an Assistant Professor at The University of Tokyo.

Education

THE UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO
B.Eng. Systems Innovation, 2004

M.S. Environmental and Ocean Engineering, 2006

Ph.D. Management of Technology for Innovation, 2009

Growing up in Detroit, Michigan, Nate saw first hand how industries (like the local automotive empires) could be completely disrupted if they weren’t prepared to innovate. Nate started his career building satellites for Northrop Grumman in Los Angeles, working as a system engineer to combine some of the most advanced technologies into multi-billion dollar space systems. After getting his MBA, Nate added finance to the technology. He co-founded Venture Scanner, a NSV spin-out startup organizing startup ecosystems. He then worked as the Head of Corporate Development at a music technology company based in Spain, leading their investor and M&A activities. Nate is now a Venture Partner as NSV Wolf Capital, and in addition conducts early stage investing as part of the FoundersBoost Fund, the VC arm of a global startup accelerator program.

Education

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
B.S. Aerospace Engineering, 2004
M.S., Aerospace Engineering, 2005

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES M.B.A., 2010

Midori Lucas joined NSV Wolf Capital in 2017 to assist partners with the day-to day running of the office, including event organization and logistics, website updates, content creation, and managing the IT operation of the headquarters and remote offices.  Prior to joining NSV Wolf Capital, she was the founder/owner of Lynx Marketing, Inc., a consulting firm that helped local small businesses gain competency in online marketing strategies and techniques.  Midori grew up in Tokyo, Japan, where early on she worked at Digital Research, Inc., the creator of the PC operating system.  She served in their Tokyo office as liaison between Japanese licensees and the company’s engineering team in Monterey, California.  Since she moved to Silicon Valley in 1989, she has built her career in product management and strategic alliance management at various technology companies such as Palm Inc., Adobe Systems, Inc., and Visa, Inc., focusing on business development and product readiness for Asia Pacific region. 

Education

UNIVERSITY OF PHOENIX
Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration

KELLER GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS
MBA

FULL SAIL UNIVERSITY
Master’s Degree in Marketing