Seiichiro Wada

Seiichiro Wada is a Japanese early-stage investor best known as the founder of Monex Ventures, the venture arm of online-brokerage group Monex. He began his career as employee No. 5 at a technology/recruitment startup, then moved to Games Arena (later Dwango, operator of the Niconico video platform), where he incubated new businesses and helped take the company toward its IPO. He joined Monex Group around 2010, initially managing overseas subsidiary operations.

In 2014 Wada established Monex Ventures as the corporate venture-capital (CVC) arm of Monex Group. He became its Representative Director in 2018 and, in 2021, an Executive Officer of Monex Group. Under his leadership the unit transitioned from a pure CVC into an independent early-stage venture fund that also raised capital from external limited partners. Over his tenure he invested in more than 100 early-stage startups.

In June 2024, a Monex Group management reshuffle made Wada Representative Director & Chairman of Monex Ventures, with Masataka Suzuki taking the President role. Wada then left Monex Group in January 2025 after roughly 15 years, becoming independent. He is now CEO / Representative Director of Paripass Inc., a partner of the Tokyo Wellness Impact Fund (Toranomon Impact Capital), and works as a "concierge"/mentor supporting startups (including at TOKYO Startup Station and the Tokyo Content Incubation Center). He provides hands-on capital- and growth-strategy support, drawing on perspectives from both operating companies and financial investors.

• Invests at the "startup valley" between seed and Series A — the moment when a company has proven product-market fit but needs funding to scale. ("スタートアップの谷みたいなタイミングで、我々にご相談いただくことが多い" — "Startups often come to us at that valley-stage timing.")
• Typical Monex Ventures check: ~¥30–50M at a ¥400–600M pre-money valuation.
• Evolved away from "Fintech 1.0": after focusing purely on fintech in 2014–2017, he concluded standalone financial services rarely generate venture-scale returns. He now favors companies with an established customer base that can add financial services "as leverage." ("ある一定の顧客基盤を持ったときに、そのあとにレバレッジとしてのFintechサービス、金融サービス.")
• Says yes to services that embed finance into genuine lifestyle/user problems ("生活に根ざしたサービスから入り込んでいくことが重要"), and is skeptical of pitches that lead with finance or market-size math ("the market is ¥X trillion, we'll take 1%") or that compete head-on with incumbent fintech players.
• Personal motivation rooted in his HR-industry start: backed Compass Inc. partly because its job-seeker mission overlapped with problems he had felt firsthand in recruitment.
• Now also active in wellness and social-impact investing (Tokyo Wellness Impact Fund / Toranomon Impact Capital).