FUNDINNO Co., Ltd. Representative Director and COO Manabu Oura　

Supporting challenging entrepreneurs with unprecedented "new investment"

FUNDINNO Co., Ltd. Representative Director and COO　Oura Manabu　(Oura Manabu)

■ Profile
He graduated from Meiji University's School of Commerce in 2011 and completed his studies at Meiji University's Graduate School of Global Business in 2013. His research topic at graduate school was "marketing." While at the same school, he met Shibahara, who would later become the CEO and Representative Director of Japan Cloud Capital Co., Ltd. (now FUNDINNO Co., Ltd.), and together they started a systems development and management consulting company. They achieved profitability in the second year. Subsequently, driven by a strong desire to contribute to the development of venture companies, he founded Japan Cloud Capital Co., Ltd. with Shibahara in 2015 and became Representative Director and COO. As the business manager of FUNDINNO, he led the expansion and improvement of services, maintaining industry-leading results to this day. In 2020, he was appointed a visiting lecturer at the University of Information Management and Innovation.

Oura Manabu is the CEO and COO of FUNDINNO, Japan's first equity investment crowdfunding service. During his job search, he felt a strong desire to "be active as a player," which led him to start his own business. However, while starting his own business, he became aware of the challenges of fundraising, and founded FUNDINNO to solve these issues. We spoke to Oura about his time as a student and the story of how he started his own business.

During my student days, I was completely immersed in my band. When I started job hunting in my third year of university, I began researching many consulting companies. As I did so, I realized that I wanted to be active as a player rather than an adviser, and gradually began to think about starting my own business.
However, starting a business from scratch is impossible, so I decided to attend graduate school in business to prepare for it. I made many connections during graduate school, but one of the most significant was meeting Yuki Shibahara, currently CEO of FUNDINNO. He also had a strong desire to start his own business, so we started a business together while we were in graduate school, founding Japan Cloud Capital Co., Ltd. Believing that programming and IT would be important in the future, I ran a systems development business that created apps and provided system engineering services. However, as I continued working, I began to think, "This work doesn't matter whether it's relevant to society or not. If I'm going to do it, I want to create my own service that can solve social problems." As I observed the entrepreneurs around me, I realized that "entrepreneurs are not financial professionals. Many of them are doing interesting things, but are unable to raise funds and are unable to take on new challenges." I myself had many opportunities to talk with investment companies, but I struggled to raise the funds I wanted. This led me to wonder if I could create a fair financial system by utilizing IT and the internet, and Japan Cloud Capital Co., Ltd. was born.

■We want to provide a new system that contributes to people who take on challenges

In Japan, annual investment in venture companies is around 800 billion yen. In comparison, the United States is around 38 trillion yen. In other words, Japan's market is only about 1/50th of the size of the United States. In today's world, advances in IT allow similar business models to be created simultaneously around the world. When the amount of funding differs by as much as 50 times, the growth rate differs dramatically. Therefore, to create a global company from Japan, it is necessary to increase the amount of funding. Thirty years ago, Japanese companies accounted for 40-50% of the world's market capitalization rankings. However, over the past 30 years, Japanese companies have disappeared from the rankings. This is due to the difficulty of attracting capital for Japanese companies. I founded FUNDINNO, Inc., hoping to find a new system to support ambitious startups.

■ Establishing a company from Japan that can compete on the world stage

The basic system of FUNDINNO Inc. is to match companies that want to raise funds via the internet with investors who want to invest in them. As of now, after fundraising, there are around 350 companies, and around 13 individual investors. Unless 100 to 200 individual investors want to support a company, it will not be able to raise a certain amount of money, and so the system is set up so that the company will not be able to become established, and I believe this is a world that cannot be judged by professional finance.
Just as non-professional YouTubers create new value and are recognized online, I believe there should be a financial world in which businesses are not only recognized by professionals, but also by individual investors online. A key feature of this service is that it provides funding opportunities for early-stage companies that struggle to raise investment due to lack of track record and a lack of success in trying new things. In the early stages of a startup, there are many situations where capital is needed even to generate numbers. To solve these challenges, a system that can be supported by a diverse range of investors is needed. A new world has been created where companies that seem interesting, even if they haven't yet achieved results, can be judged by the collective wisdom of the internet. I think this is a very unique feature.
Our goal is to produce companies from Japan that can aim to go global. To that end, we aim for a world in which more individual investors can provide funding to excellent companies. Currently, our company's share of venture capital in Japan is around 0.3%. However, we would like to increase this share, provide 1000 billion yen or 2000 billion yen in funding to venture companies, and launch companies that can compete on the global stage.

■Message to university students

As the times change, systems that make it easier to support challenges are being put in place. Therefore, the barriers to starting a business are gradually lowering. In a world where it's easy for even young people to take on challenges, I hope you will do what you really want to do and try without fear of failure. Even if you fail, it will be a good experience, so keep challenging yourself with a positive attitude.

Interview with Student Newspaper Online on March 14, 2024, by Nihon University sophomore Mitsuri Yonemitsu

Mai Wakao, 1st year student at International Christian University / Karin Ishimatsu, 1st year student at Tsuda University / Yoshihiko Yoshi, 2nd year student at Keio University Graduate School / Mitsuri Yonemitsu, 2nd year student at Nihon University