Teruhide Sato Founder & CEO

Teruhide (Teru) Sato attended the United World College in Italy, and thereafter graduated from Keio University. In 1997, in partnership with Softbank, he co-founded Cybercash Japan (now known as VeriTrans), an online payment company. In 1999, he co-founded BEENOS (formerly netprice), and as CEO, took it public on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in 2004. In December 2014, Teru resigned as CEO of BEENOS and is now based in Singapore investing in and advising startups across the globe. Teru was selected as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2008.

Notable Investments : Zilingo, Sendo, Ralali, Droom, NoBroker, CitrusPay, Bharatpe, Mobile Premier League, Healthians, Mfine, Servify, Trell, SureCash. Tokopedia, Midtrans, Iyzico (Prior to BEENEXT).

Dirk Van Quaquebeke Managing Partner

Dirk van Quaquebeke is a Managing Partner at BEENEXT, a Singapore based early-stage venture capital firm investing in India, Southeast Asia, Japan, and the U.S. He has been living in Asia since 2009 and has been building and investing in early-stage tech companies for over 15 years. He actively participates in over a dozen company boards and has led investments in over 50 companies, such as Trusting Social, Bank Open, FleetX, YAP, Cropin, Zenius. Prior to Beenext, he founded and led the company builder Alps Ventures Pte Ltd. out of which more than a dozen incubations and investments were done where he headed in an active operating role 3 different ventures. Originally from Europe Dirk completed a degree in Computer Science from the University of Hildesheim and a dual MSc. in Corporate Finance & Macro Economics as well as the CEMS degree from Copenhagen Business School & ESADE.

Notable Investments: Trusting Social, Open Bank, M2P (YapApp), Fleetx, Amartha, Zenius, Grey Orange Robotics.

Hiro Maeda Managing Partner

Hiro Maeda is in charge of leading the Japan SaaS-focused ALL STAR SAAS FUND. With a degree in computer science and economics from Bucknell University, he has been an early-stage investor in over 100 companies. Previously, he led the investment division at BEENOS. In 2010, he launched Japan’s first startup accelerator, Open Network Lab, in partnership with Digital Garage and Kakaku.com. Hiro was selected as one of the 2016 Forbes Asia 30 Under 30 in the finance and venture capital category.

Notable Investments: SmartHR, ANDPAD, Instacart, Everlane, Fril, and Giftee.

Hero Choudhary Managing Partner

Hero Choudhary leads BEENEXT accelerate fund – focusing on India, and SE Asia region. He brings 15+ years investing experience focused on digital economies around the world. Combined with his unique global CXO network, hero is supporting next generation leaders in the region.

Notable accelerate fund investments: BharatPe, NoBroker, Servify, M2P, Healthians, Jago Coffee, Phi Commerce.

Faiz Rahman Partner

Faiz Rahman is a believer in Indonesia internet and tech economy, and he is part of BEENEXT investment team. In 2013, Faiz accidentally began his journey in tech with a mobile app company in Jakarta. Then, he founded a job-matching platform to serve Indonesian students and fresh graduates, where he encountered a failure (but learned a lot from it). Prior to BEENEXT, Faiz joined Convergence Ventures, a venture capital firm investing in Southeast Asia and had brief stints at GOJEK (product strategy) and Lepaya (Edtech, Growth & Strategy). He is highly interested in how technology and innovation can help solve fundamental societal problems in Indonesia, at scale.

Nao Ito Operating Partner

Nao is a net/tech business freak since he started coding on NCSA Mosaic during his school days in Keio University. After he graduated in 1997, he launched an Online Game Studio in Berkeley, CA, and produced several virtual spaces to connect the people around the world. In 1999, he co-founded BEENOS (formerly netprice) together with Teru and led several new projects including Online marketplace business, IPO of the company on the TSE, as well as Cross Border EC-platform as Founder CEO of the JV with eBay Inc. and bridged buyers/sellers between Japan, the US and Europe. In BEENEXT since 2017, he is passionate about collaborating with fellow founders/partners crossing the region and learn from the new innovative digital platforms. He is also an avid street food enthusiast and loves to explore many cuisines from around the world.

Chinmaya Saxena Partner, Community Strategy

As Partner, community strategy at Beenext, Chinmaya and also leads platform initiatives. Besides supporting India investments and actively engaging with our portfolio, he also leads the community charter across the Beenext global founder network. A seasoned tech industry leader, he has been in roles across Strategic Partnerships, Marketing, Strategy and Program Management. He was actively involved in building the global developer program for Facebook and leading several startup initiatives across India and South Asia. He has spent almost a decade at Microsoft across multiple roles, Led IT-BPO engagements at Wipro, Keane and a couple of other startups in his career giving him a unique perspective on both small and mature organizations. He gets his energy from deep founder engagements and is an active participant in the Indian startup ecosystem working with founders across sectors, co-investors and several industry bodies.

Yukano Nishijima Investment Team

Yukano Nishijima is one of the earliest Investment team members of BEENEXT. She was born and grew up in Japan and graduated from Bangalore University in India. She is in charge of supporting India investments. Prior to this, she worked as an Investment Manager at BEENOS, an E-commerce company in Japan.

Anirudh Garg Partner

Anirudh Garg is an Investment team member with BEENEXT and is responsible for investment-related activities in India and other Southeast Asian markets. Previously, he was at Flipkart (Strategy and Planning) and Speciale Invest (deep-tech focused VC with a focus on climatetech, fintech, healthtech, and SaaS). At BEENEXT, he looks forward to backing legendary founders building disruptive technology companies.

Anirudh holds a B.Tech in Chemical Engineering from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani.

Karthik Gopalakrishnan Partner, Capital Strategies

Karthik leads Capital Strategies for India and Southeast Asia. He works closely with founders on financing and strategic initiatives, advising them on fund raising and M&A. He also helps with liquidity planning focusing on exits.

Karthik has spent more than 18 years in Technology M&A and fund raising across India, the US and the UK. He has a unique combination of sell-side and buy-side experience, having been an investment banker and spent time in corporate development (in-house M&A). Karthik has worked with global consulting firms, investment banks and large Technology companies.

Yusuke Kono Director

Yusuke Kono is an Investment team member with BEENEXT and is responsible for investment-related activities in Southeast Asia and India. Previously, he was a journalist for the Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) for more than 10 years. At BEENEXT, he is keen to leverage his experience and bring new perspectives to exciting startups and founders that want to have a positive impact on society. Furthermore, he will actively support portfolio companies with global expansion and partnerships, especially in Japan.

Yusuke holds a MBA from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a Bachelor of Law from Keio University.

Punret Beotra Human Capital

Punret Beotra is an Human capital Team member with Beenext and is responsible for all supporting people activities for India based portfolio, He was previously heading the People team of FalconX, Fanclash and DocOn ( acquired by Pharmeasy). At Beenext he looks forward to helping the founders with access to great talent and build a culture that helps the company grow and succeed. Punret Holds an MBA in HR and Training from IBS

Priyank Mahajan Investment Team

Priyank Mahajan is an investment team member with BEENEXT and is responsible for supporting activities in India and Southeast Asian markets from the growth side. Previously, he worked as an equity research analyst at Bank of America where he covered India & Southeast Asia telecom, media, and internet sectors. He has also worked at Goldman Sachs in their investment banking division covering the EMEA natural resources sector. Priyank holds an MBA from IIM Calcutta, and B.E. in Mechanical Engineering from PEC, Chandigarh.

Saksham Pant Investment Team

Saksham Pant is an Investment team member at BEENEXT and is responsible for supporting activities in India. Saksham started his professional career in the technical domain of semiconductors as an ASIC Hardware Engineer at Nvidia. Post his MBA, Saksham joined Uber, where he did multi-functional stints across supply growth, pricing, new product launches and safety & quality. After spending more than two years at Uber, Saksham joined Athera Venture Partners (an early-stage VC) in mid- 2019, where his focus areas included Consumer tech, Deep tech, Ed tech and SaaS.  Saksham holds a B.E. (Hons.) in Electronics & Instrumentation from BITS Pilani and an MBA (Finance) from IIM Lucknow.

Aarushi Sharma Investment Team

Aarushi Sharma is an Investment team member at BEENEXT and is responsible for supporting activities in India. She is a naturally curious person and hence loves to interact and brainstorm with founders. She actively tracks start-ups across AgriTech, Climate, SaaS, HealthTech and Education. She has previously worked at Bertelsmann India Investments.

Aarushi holds a Bachelors of Economics (Honours) degree from Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC), Delhi University.

Sujata Yadav Investment Team

Sujata Yadav is an investment team member at BEENEXT looking at supporting activities across sectors in India. Previously, she worked at upGrad where she spent time launching and scaling programs in their domestic and international portfolio.

She holds a degree in B.Com Honours from Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi University