3/18/2008

Also covered in AsianWeek.

In association with the US Market Access Center, the San Jose Software Business Cluster and the Environmental Businesss Cluster, JETRO put on the first annual US-Japan IT Venture Summit. Hosted at the San Jose Fairmont Hotel, the Summit welcomed more than 120 guests and panelists. It showcased seven exciting new companies, some of which are looking to enter the Japanese market from the US and others that were Japanese working to penetrate into the US market.

The panelists and company representatives included a number of well-connected executives from both sides of the Pacific, including VPs, CEOs, and other executives with years of experience in Venture Capital, Investment Banking and more. The two panels shared ideas and discussed techniques for entering the Japanese market and the US market, respectively.

Among the topics of discussion were roadblocks to entry into Japan, especially in the industry of healthcare and government, along with some what were some good ways to enter the Japanese market. On the American side, panelists gave pointers for foreign companies looking to enter into the high-tech market here in Silicon Valley, as well as how to best go about raising capital.

The audio recording of the entire meeting will soon be available as a Podcast and the presentations given will also be available for download.

The US Market Access Center would like to thank all the parties involved in making this event a huge success:

The Staff of JETRO San Francisco and its Business Incubation Center

Our presenters, panelists and moderators
Orlando Campbell, Thaddeus Systems, Inc.
Brenda Fox, Codenomicon
David Murphy, SilkCloud Inc.
Thomas Ludwig, TBD Networks, Inc.
Takashi Baba, Fujitsu America, Inc.
Hiroshi Honjo, NTT Data AgileNet, LLC
Yoshifumi Nakata, Mitsui Comtek Corporation
Makoto Abe, Japan Business Solutions
Yuuki Ishikawa, Realcom Inc.
Nao Ito, Shop Airlines, Ltd.
Hiro Takahashi, DTS, Inc.
Doug Felder, Felder Associates
Karin Hollerbach, Taku Group
Stephanie Keller-Bottom, i2 Innovation Intelligence
Phil Wickham, ProCap Partners
Tim Omay, Trenwith Securities, LLC
Jim Robbins, Environmental Business Cluster

With a special thanks to Michiru Lackey, the main organizer of this Summit.

For more information about the US MAC, please visit their website at http://www.usmarketaccess.com

For more information about JETRO, please visit their website at http://www.jetro.org