SIIFIC Welcomed Mikihide Katsumata, Former President of the Innovation Network Corporation of Japan, for a Lecture on Investment Due Diligence
SIIFIC held a lecture for its interns involved in company research, welcoming Mikihide Katsumata, former President of the Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ), to its office. The lecture focused on the mindset and approach to investment due diligence (DD).
The lecture was arranged at the invitation of Kazuhiko Umeda, Co-founder of SIIFIC, who had previously worked at INCJ. The organization played a role in providing risk capital to areas where funding might not readily flow based solely on short-term profitability, taking a longer-term perspective on the future of industry. Its experience of making investment decisions while considering both economic returns and broader social significance offers many valuable insights for SIIFIC, which similarly approaches investment with both financial and social perspectives in mind.
When considering what would be most important to convey to interns involved in company research, Umeda came back to a mindset he himself had learned early in his investment career: what should we look at, and how deeply should we look, before making an investment decision? Due diligence is not simply a process of completing a predefined checklist. It involves determining what to investigate within limited time and resources, questioning one’s own assumptions and hypotheses, and thinking deeply before making an investment decision. We wanted the interns to learn this mindset directly from someone who has spent many years working at the forefront of investment and decision-making.
On the day, the participants included not only university and high school interns, but also an accountant, the Japan representative of a U.S.-based asset management firm, and a younger employee from the same firm. Bringing together participants from different generations and professional backgrounds in finance and accounting, the session provided an opportunity to explore investment due diligence from a range of perspectives, drawing on their respective experiences and insights.
The lecture was delivered in clear and accessible language, making it easy for both university and high school students to follow. From the very beginning, questions came from many participants, starting with the students and covering a wide range of perspectives. One question often led naturally to another comment or opinion, allowing the discussion to develop organically. Mr. Katsumata responded thoughtfully to each of the students’ questions, drawing on his own experiences in investment and company research, as well as specific examples from the field.
Bringing together participants from different generations and backgrounds created an opportunity to look at a single theme from a range of perspectives, extending the learning well beyond the scope of the scheduled lecture.
Even after the session formally ended at the scheduled time, participants did not immediately leave. Instead, an informal conversation naturally continued, almost as an extension of the lecture. Students asked additional questions, while the participating professionals shared their own experiences, allowing the conversation to continue beyond the planned program. For a while, SIIFIC’s small office became a place where people of different generations and professional backgrounds could learn from one another.
The interns who attended also shared a number of reflections on what they had learned:
- “The explanations were easy to understand, even when the topics were complex, because they were illustrated with specific examples of companies.”
- “I learned the importance of understanding a company’s ‘true customer pain’—whether customers genuinely want the product badly enough to reach for it. I came to understand more deeply that it is important not simply to identify a need, but to uncover the decisive pain point.”
- “I had been wondering about the respective strengths and positioning of comprehensive versus specialized VCs, so it was very valuable to hear a real-world perspective on the topic.”
At SIIFIC, we believe that exposing people to diverse experiences and perspectives across generations and professional backgrounds—and creating opportunities to learn from one another through open dialogue—helps nurture the people who will shape the society of the future. Through opportunities such as this lecture, we value giving students direct exposure to the experiences of professionals at the forefront of their fields and encouraging them to broaden their own perspectives.
We would like to express our sincere gratitude to Mr. Katsumata for providing such a valuable learning opportunity, and to all those who joined us and contributed to the dialogue with the students.
