26 – 100 in alphabetical order: Keiichi “Kay” Enjoji , TEL Venture Capital
Japan-based semiconductor and display equipment maker Tokyo Electron (TEL) named Keiichi ”Kay” Enjoji president of its corporate venturing unit, TEL Venture Capital (TVC), in July 2011 and promoted him to vice-president of corporate technology strategy at TEL in January 2017.
TVC’s investment scope includes innovative technologies impacting TEL’s core semiconductor and advanced display, to photonics and optics, sensors, life sciences, healthcare, medical electronics and other areas.
The unit is not only keen on backing startups for financial returns but also product and business development perspective. Enjoji’s dual role as president of TVC and vice-president of TEL allows him to identify new business strategies for the corporation and implement them through venture investments and mergers and acquisitions (M&A).
Enjoji, with more than three decades of semiconductor industry experience under his belt, runs partnership programs and conducts M&A deals with portfolio companies after investments.
With strong demand for chips, TEL has been seeing record results while TVC made many investments including US-based crystal materials producer Light Polymers in 2017.
In addition, TVC has had many successful exits out of the deals done. In December last year, Bloomberg reported that networking equipment provider Cisco had entered discussions to acquire US-based fabless semiconductor technology producer Luxtera. The acquisition was completed two months later, with Cisco paying $660m in cash and assuming Luxtera’s outstanding equity awards.
Another notable exit for the unit was US-based on-demand disinfection chemistry system manufacturer Miox which was acquired by electrochemical technologies provider De Nora and took place also in February this year.
Enjoji, who sits on the boards of Floadia, Light Polymers, Tsukuba-Seiko, Alberta Nano-Monitoring Systems, Innovative Particle-Monitoring Technologies, Opt Creation, Liola, Genalyte, EnerVault, Crystal Solar, Tau-Metrix and Quantum 14, said last year that more deals would be coming: “Recently we raised our funds to be double, to expand strategic investments.”
Enjoji manages a team of more than 10 people in Japan, the US, France and Israel making strategic investments for TEL to impact its core semiconductor and advanced display, to photonics and optics, sensors, and life sciences, healthcare and medical electronics.
Enjoji has a wider remit as a head of the innovative technology planning group to manage collaborations with startups. All its investments are expected to lead to joint business development projects.
Enjoji was previously a director of TEL’s microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) division for more than seven years since 2003, having instigated new businesses such as through-silicon via (TSV) process equipment, advanced probe card and MEMS tester.
Before that, he had held a senior manager of corporate marketing role for three and a half years since 2000, where he developed new business strategies for TEL, selected MEMS and TSV technology and acquired diversified conglomerate Sumitomo’s steel manufacturing division Sumitomo Metal’s MEMS department.
Enjoji also oversaw earlier as a senior manager from 1994 product marketing and oversea sales for chemical vapour deposition and physical vapour deposition systems, as well as sales and marketing for US-based cancer treatment technology provider Varian’s products in Japan. In total, he has worked within the Japanese corporation for more than 25 years.
Enjoji holds a master’s degree in economics from Keio University.
