Takeshi Kodama, head and managing partner of JERA Ventures, is one of the 100 leading corporate venturing professionals in our 2026 Powerlist.
When Takeshi Kodama stepped into the leadership of Japanese energy utility firm JERA’s $300m corporate venturing unit in March 2025, he inherited a unit with ambition but limited global visibility. In the past year, JERA Ventures has begun to look less like a cautious strategic investor and more like a deliberate architect of the energy transition.
JERA, the world’s largest liquified natural gas (LNG) buyer and a dominant Japanese power generator, sits at the centre of Asia’s decarbonisation dilemma. Kodama’s mandate has been to translate that industrial scale into venture relevance.
The result is a noticeably sharper investment posture: fewer opportunistic deals, more conviction around hydrogen, ammonia, carbon capture and digital optimisation of power systems as part of a focus on three sectors to transform JERA’s corporate value: decarbonisation technologies, digital technologies and well-being.
Its recent transactions illustrate the shift to make JERA Ventures the centre of innovation in the energy industry, including two new approaches: a partnership with startup platform Newlab New Orleans to accelerate next-generation carbon capture technologies designed for low-concentration CO₂ emissions, such as those coming from gas-fired power plants, and a MoU with UC Berkeley to advance collaborations in education, science and energy innovation.
Some of the unit’s more prominent deals in recent months include their participation in funding rounds for two fusion companies, Commonwealth Fusion Systems and Kyoto Fusioneering, one follow-on investment in unique monolithic metal-organic frameworks developer Immaterial, and lithium-ion battery producer TeraWatt Technology. These are long-term investments that might take a decade or more to realise.
What distinguishes Kodama’s approach is not just sector choice but how the unit connects investments to JERA’s operating business. The venture arm increasingly functions as a technology scouting and deployment engine, with pilots and commercial pathways considered early in the investment process. This builds off his decade of leading Mitsui Fudosan’s CVC arm, 31Ventures.
Internally, the change is cultural. Decision cycles have reportedly shortened, and syndication with global venture firms has increased, signalling a willingness to operate at venture speed. Externally, JERA Ventures is becoming more visible in climate tech ecosystems from Silicon Valley to Europe.
Yet constraints remain. Compared with Western peers like BP, Chevron or Shell’s corporate venturing units, JERA’s $300m fund size and risk tolerance are still modest. And the strategic overlay from Japan’s acute need for stable energy imports means bets must often serve dual purposes: decarbonisation and security.
Even so, Kodama’s tenure marks a transition from passive observer to active participant in shaping next-generation energy systems. If the first phase of JERA Ventures was about learning the language of venture capital, the current phase is about speaking it with intent and, increasingly, with influence.
The GCV Powerlist represents the 100 individuals spearheading the future of the corporate venturing industry.
These individuals excel in terms of their venturing approach and structure, number and quality of portfolio companies and in their contributions to the corporate venturing profession.
Here’s a snapshot of their recent deals:
