Meet the Team: Saki Oshima
Born and raised in Japan, Saki Oshima is Scrum Ventures’ Business Development Manager based in San Francisco. She is particularly passionate about the emerging FemTech industry and is part of the Scrum Studio team where she manages Scrum Connect Online, our platform that helps Japanese companies connect with global startups.
Why were you interested in leaving Japan to work in the U.S.?
When I was studying English in high school, my textbook provided insight into American culture, and I recall being amazed at how free and wonderfully diverse the culture seemed to be.
While at university, I had the opportunity to participate in various volunteer and non-profit activities. I experienced women’s empowerment, social advancement, and activities to introduce and support the culture of foreigners. This included not only American foreigners but also those from the Middle East. For example, there was an event for the 40th anniversary of Qatar — Japan friendship. I volunteered to help with interpretation and event management, and that is when I first learned about how Qatar is small yet wealthy because of its liquefied natural gas resources. This led me to study international relations at a women’s college in Yokohama, Japan before I went abroad and earned my MBA from U.C. San Diego.
Have you found that people have many misconceptions when it comes to working in the Middle East?
Yes, I think many Japanese tend to think of the Middle East as a dangerous place. But most areas are not conflict zones. There are many places where you can travel safely. I was fortunate to get to know Qatari and Saudi Arabian students in Japan and learned a lot. During the seminars I attended and while conducting research, my classmates and I discussed the ways in which Japanese companies can — and already do — play an active role in Gulf countries.
What were your career goals after graduating from university?
After graduating, I wanted to use what I learned at university to get a job that would support the overseas expansion of Japanese companies. I felt I didn’t know enough about Japanese companies, so I first got a job in business development at a consulting firm that worked with many Japanese companies.
However, I soon became motivated to learn more about other countries and I wanted to learn about Japan from an overseas perspective to understand diverse perspectives. That is what led me to study abroad.
My parents run a family manufacturing and retail business with about 30 stores in the Kanto area that sell mostly home furnishings and housewares. I often overheard my parents and grandparents at home talking about sales and management. That is why it felt natural to study business management.
Tell us about your path to venture capital.
There is a lot of group work in business school, and I realized that I’m good at bringing people together from different countries who have completely different backgrounds. I also realized that I was most excited when it came to facilitating collaboration. I wanted to make use of this strength in my work.
During business school, I had an internship at a Japanese venture capital company based in Israel. I was surprised to discover that none of the employees could speak Japanese. They all spoke Hebrew and English. Some of the investments were in companies that were targeting the Japanese market, so I had the opportunity to talk to local startups about the Japanese market as a native Japanese. When I started hearing feedback that the Japanese market was “unique and difficult” for startups to enter, I began to think it would be useful for me to act as a bridge.
Eventually, I met people from Scrum Ventures and learned about their “Scrum Studio” platform which creates programs with global startups to create new businesses with Japanese corporations. When I started, Scrum Studio was launching “SPORTS TECH TOKYO,” a global open innovation project focused on sports tech.
The open innovation that I learned through internships was knowledge-based education and theory, but I felt that Scrum Ventures was creating real businesses and felt it was a perfect fit for me. I didn’t hesitate to apply and it has been almost three years since I joined the company.
What projects are you involved with now?
Since joining Scrum Ventures, I have been involved in the management of open innovation programs and new business development. I’ve worked on proposals for a global open innovation SmartCityX program which just concluded and was very successful.
With the success of SPORTS TECH TOKYO in 2018, we received inquiries from many companies and have proposed programs with various themes. However, there are many programs that never saw the light of day, so I was really happy to be able to see “SmartCityX” succeed.
In May 2020, we launched Scrum Connect Online, an online platform that connects large companies and startups. Scrum Ventures began investing in 2013 and has been expanding its studio business since 2017. From my experience so far, I know that connecting large companies and startups creates an interesting chemistry so to speak. But there tends to be little information about overseas startups and there are language barriers. So I enjoy being able to help solve these challenges with this platform.
Covid-19 restrictions also presented certain obvious obstacles for Japanese companies. It made it harder for them to attend pitch events and meet startups. So the timing was perfect for this new online platform. Starting with just a concept, I launched Scrum Connect Online as quickly as possible. As the person in charge, I was responsible for the planning and development, which was challenging but rewarding.
It has been about a year since we started the service, but it is already been used by more than 60 companies and we’ve received very positive feedback. We pride ourselves on helping companies overcome not just language barriers but also cultural barriers.
What is FemTech and why are you excited about it?
Femtech is an emerging technology field that supports women’s health. Services focus on menstrual tracking, egg freezing, and menopause, for example. As with our investment team, the majority of global investors are men. I’m not an investment member, but the investment team will sometimes ask my opinion about something from the perspective of a female consumer.
Although 51% of the population is female, many clinical trials for the treatment of illnesses have been conducted by men. Medical treatment is based on the premise that a woman’s body is a smaller version of a man’s which is an oversimplification. Women founders often have unique perspectives and solutions for issues that have been overlooked by a male-dominant investor base.
For example, I’m wearing an Oura Ring (ring-shaped activity logger), and while more data about the female body is collected with such technological advances, treatment to support women’s health have many times not changed. I’m really interested in this growing field, and founded Femtech Community Japan, a networking group for corporations and individuals.
There are many things I would like to tackle in the future in terms of new business creation, and FemTech categories are particularly compelling. I am very motivated to work on women-related themes because I believe that this is an issue that I’m well-suited to handle.
