Jeffrey Char

C. Jeffrey Char is a serial entrepreneur and investor who has spent more than two decades building and backing companies from Tokyo. Originally from Hawaii, he studied economics at Sophia University in Tokyo and law at UC Berkeley School of Law and Harvard Law School. He began his career as an attorney in Silicon Valley and later worked as an investment banker in Tokyo, giving him a combined legal, financial, and M&A background that informs his venture-building approach.

In 2000 he founded J-Seed Ventures, Inc., an independent Tokyo-based investment company and venture studio through which he has helped create roughly 15 companies. Earlier in his career he founded, built, and sold several ventures: Sozon, an online marketing company sold to ValueCommerce (TSE Mothers: 2491); Solis, a domain registrar sold to GMO Internet (TSE: 9449); SSK Technology, an electronics/PCB component company sold to Suzuki Manufacturing; and Pario Software, a network security company sold to Lucent Technologies (NYSE: ALU).

Char's current focus is distributed renewable energy. He co-founded TRENDE, an online renewable-energy retailer in Japan that promotes rooftop solar and has built a peer-to-peer platform enabling consumers to buy, sell, and share renewable electricity; he serves as its chairman. He formerly served as Director of Corporate Venture Capital at Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), which was closely tied to TRENDE's origins. In 2018 he founded and now leads SOGO Energy, a Singapore-based decentralized-infrastructure company that partners with and invests in local energy ventures to bring affordable, clean energy and value-added services (such as solar irrigation in Cambodia) to rural communities in emerging markets.

Beyond investing and operating, Char is an educator, teaching entrepreneurship at business schools in Japan, Spain, Cambodia, and Thailand (including Sasin School of Management), and is an Unreasonable Fellow and mentor who has advised dozens of impact ventures.

• Invests at the seed / early stage, in line with his angel-investor and venture-studio profile.
• Focuses on distributed renewable energy, climate tech, energy access, and agtech — ventures that "leverage market forces to solve social and environmental challenges."
• Backs impact-driven businesses, particularly those bringing clean energy and value-added services to underserved and rural communities in emerging markets.
• Brings an operator's lens: as a repeat founder with legal, banking, and M&A experience, he tends to back founders solving real market problems with defensible, scalable models rather than purely mission-driven projects.
• Geographic reach spans Japan and emerging markets in Asia and Africa, reflecting both his home base and SOGO Energy's rural-electrification footprint.