Creating the Future of Healthcare Through Digital Technology

Healthcare is becoming more of a societal problem with chronic diseases impacting whole communities, not just individuals. Using breakthrough technology such as Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning, companies are now able to blaze new, innovative paths which target healthcare solutions in therapeutics, delivery, and wellness. Kicker Ventures aims to bring these companies together and assist communities that lack the system, structure and know-how to face these medical issues. 

On November 3, we learned from the founder and managing partner at Kicker Ventures, Masashi Kiyomine, about how his venture fund is bringing investors, entrepreneurs, and business developers together to create the future of healthcare through digital technology. The session was moderated by Anna Nakayasu, a licensed physician from University of Tokyo and current MBA candidate at Stanford Graduate School of Business.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS:

Masashi Kiyomine is the Founder & Managing Partner at Kicker Ventures, a Silicon Valley based venture capital fund he founded in 2021.  With a vision to set the future standard of healthcare, Masashi is reimagining the traditional VC model and created a novel global healthcare innovation platform that partners with entrepreneurs and big corporations to maximize impact all over the world.

As part of this new model, he has created Co-Studio, an open innovation style incubator based in Japan focused on “Social Medicine,” a term he has coined.  Co-Studio’s revolutionary approach to new business creation has resulted in the launch of 7 companies since 2020.  

Prior to founding Kicker Ventures, Masashi spent 13 years at Mitsui Global Investment where he specialized in Digital Health and Medical Devices and served as the Head of Global Life Sciences Venture Investment.   

Masashi has an appointment as a Specially Appointed Professor (Visitor) at Tohoku University and advises several healthcare and innovation programs, including Innohub by METI and AMDAP by Tokyo.  Masashi is a columnist at Nikkei Beyond Health and holds a dual B.A. in Engineering and Asian Studies from Dartmouth College. 

An avid beer enthusiast, Masashi is a co-owner of Wursthall, a California take on the German Beerhall in San Mateo.

Anna Nakayasu is a physician and currently an MBA candidate at Stanford Graduate School of Business. She was born in Yamaguchi, Japan, and grew up both in the US and Japan. After graduating from the University of Tokyo School of Medicine in 2017, she has been training as an OB/GYN. To further pursue her interests in contributing to the healthcare industry, she has begun her studies at Stanford GSB since fall 2020 during the pandemic.