GCV Powerlist 2016: Joe Saijo, Recruit Holdings

Recruit Strategic Partners (RSP) has brought a new venture star further into light in Joe Saijo. He joined Recruit Strategic Partners in 2013 after working for one of the largest IT companies in Japan, Hitachi, as a manager from 2001. At Hitachi, Saijo was involved in M&A, partnership and venture deals.

In his tenure in California’s Bay area for four years with Hitachi, Saijo said he “accelerated business development and venture investment, including the notable IPO of Palo Alto Networks on the New York Stock Exchange”.

At RSP, Saijo has led six investment professionals in his team and tripled the number of portfolio companies to 30 deals, including lending platform Kabbage, e-signature technology provider DocuSign and education company Udacity, with 10 of these deals completed last year.

Of these deals, Saijo said: “DataRobot and 99designs are ones that I am most proud of. For the plan this year, we will keep our investment thesis ‘innovative tech and disruptive model’ and keep the same investment pace or more.”

This confidence is support by the parent’s chief executive. Masumi Minegishi, president, CEO and representative director of Recruit Holdings, said: “We are accelerating investment to startups with innovative technologies since I believe open innovation is the key for Recruit to grow continuously. Joe will bring us innovations through this initiative.”