Youngrok Kim on Japanese Corporate Venture Capital, Korea Army in Iraq & The Owner of Indeed & Glassdoor - E58

Youngrok is a partner at Ginza Ventures, cross border early-stage venture capital fund based in Japan and the US. Currently, he is structuring the fund while raising the capital from potential limited partners. With an emphasis on B2B and FinTech, the fund intends to invest in startups in various industries and aims to help its portfolio companies expand in Japan (and Korea). He also launched a media project called VRidge. Along with the current weekly newsletter written in Japanese and Korean, he also plans to start podcasts and Youtube channels for the audiences in Japan and Korea featuring investors, founders, and builders from other countries. With full of curiosity, he has always aspired to challenge new things. Born in raised in Seoul in Korea, he decided to go to Japan to play guitar in a rock band when he was in high school. While he was serving for Korean Army in 2005, he volunteered to go to Iraq for 7 months. Post-college, after spending six years as an engineer at Goldman Sachs in Tokyo, he decided to go to the US for the MBA program at the University of Chicago to try out his venture capital journey. He spent one year at ARCH Venture Partners in Chicago before working at Recruit Strategic Partner, corporate VC arm of Recruit Holdings, the parent company of Indeed and Glassdoor. He currently lives with his beautiful wife in the Bay Area. As for hobbies, in addition to playing guitar, he enjoys all outdoor activities https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/youngrok-kim