Saemin Ahn spent nearly 10 years with Rakuten's CVC as managing partner;. He rejoined in February following a two-year spell with VC 500 Global.
Saemin Ahn, photo courtesy of LinkedIn
Saemin Ahn has joined Rakuten Capital, the CVC arm of the Japanese internet services and technology conglomerate Rakuten, as managing partner.
Ahn was one of the founding managing partners of the CVC and helped it to launch as Rakuten Ventures in 2014. He stayed with the unit for nearly 10 years. In this time, it made investments in startups including Carousell, a Singaporean smartphone and web-based consumer marketplace for secondhand goods, and OneSignal, a push notification technology provider. Ahn sat as a board member for these startups until January 2023 when he left Rakuten Ventures.
He then worked as a partner at 500 Global, a VC firm that invests in tech startups worldwide. Ahn worked in the Singapore office, responsible for deals in Southeast Asia. Now he is back with Rakuten.
Rakuten Capital invests globally and across a number of sectors, including fintech, transport, consumer and energy. Recent investments recorded in GCV’s CVC Funding Round Database include its participation in the pre-B funding round for Leal, a Colombian developer of an AI-driven customer engagement platform, and the B extension round for Honest, an Indonesian digital financial services provider.
