シリコンバレーで日本の新興系事業会社が今一つ本流の中に食い込めない主な理由について、恐らく筆者よりも既に先に多くの有識者や在シリコンバレーの実業家等からも指摘されてきていると思います。しかし、今尚、その「罠」から抜けだぜないでいるのが現状のように見受けられます。サンフランシスコ・シリコンバレーで米国インキュベータやアクセレレータ、事業会社関係者と仕事上で様々な会話をする際に、折を見て日本企業に関して具体的な名前を出してみてその評判や、当該日系企業に関する現地の声としての意見を聞いてみようとすると、大半が、「そもそも誰それ？」という答えがほとんどです（感覚的に、95％）。もしくは、ブランドは知ってはいるものの、皮肉にも、「あぁ、あの、こっちで尽く●×▲が空振りしまくって●×したアソコね・・・」という、「失敗」ケースが脳裏に焼き付く始末。因みに、それらの日系企業は、日本国内の著名テック系メディアではシリコンバレーのスタートアップシーンとの括りとなると頻繁にキーノートスピーカーを招聘するような、日本国内では立派な会社。最近筆者が再びこの手の話題をランチの合間に振ってみると、やはり、同じような会話となり、そこで話題が違うところに移る、という有様。。

 言わずもがな、かもしれませんが、以下が良く繰り返し指摘されることです（各項目いずれも相関関係があるものと思われます）：

日本側本社の意思決定権限が絶大"すぎ":
‐　これは、筆者自身が、欧米外資系投資銀行勤務時代に同じ類の経験を致しましたが、要は、その国と地域の市場の特異性、ローカル性や顧客特性について最も知識のある現地採用スタッフに与えられている意思決定の権限移譲が中途半端となり、機能的にうまく実働出来ないというオチです。本来、そうした現地の有能なスタッフは、わざわざ現地からヘッドハントされてその実績や将来性を買われて雇われたにもかかわらず、彼ら・彼女らの知見を十分活かすことよりも（現地のことなど全く無知な）本社経営陣側の意思決定に結局依存せざるを得ない状態となってしまうために、結局、リソースを全く活かしきれないまま終わってしまうというパターンです。例えば、戦略的な事業進出・市場開拓を試みて日本から晴れてシリコンバレーに本社側からの有能スタッフを中心としたM&Aチームを掲げて乗り込んだところまでは良いですが、そうした有能な面々も現地では全くの素人になります。筆者もいくら日本市場でM&A／IPOの実績がトップレベルであったとしても（実際にそうであったとは言いませんが）、仮にウォール街に乗り込んだこころで、所詮、場違いな話になります（もちろん、現地にうまく溶け込んでいくことで、次第に日本で身に着けた力を応用させられる素地は出来上がる可能性は生まれてくるかもしれませんが）。恐らく、シリコンバレーに日系企業が乗り込む場合も同じパターンであると考えます。現地のことは現地を知り尽くす自社の現地採用スタッフ陣に任せることが大切であり、そこが疎かになる結果、現地の関係者からすると「？？？」と思わせるようなM&Aターゲットに触手して結局案の定失敗・・・というパターンの繰り返すとなります。

シリコンバレー側の駐在員チームが"希薄"
‐　現地にオフィスがあっても、そこのスタッフ層が希薄なケース。アメリカ側の関係者からすると、「果たしてこの人達だけで何を成し遂げられるの？そもそもどこまで本社に対する意思決定権限があるの？」と、不安視されてしまうケース。そうなれば、本気モードで交渉事することに二の足を踏んでしまう米国側企業も出てきてしまう可能性は十分にあります。その結果、手中に出来そうであったような案件も、結局取り逃がすことになってしまいます。要は、シリコンバレー現地でそれなりの事業開発（良くあるケースは、シリコンバレー・サンフランシスコ一帯の地域でM&Aを仕掛けるケース）を成功裏に進めるためには、如何に諸々の点でその会社が「現地化」を果たせるかがカギを握ります。必ずしも現地から有能な人材を採用しないまでも、本社側から経営決定権限のある人物が中長期的にコミットしながら現地で時間をかけながら現地化を果たして本流に次第に溶け込んでいくことで、ディールソースが一段階充実したものになっていく可能性が高まります。特に意思決定権限のない「部長・課長」レベルの人材がどれだけ奔走しても、所詮相手には見透かされている、というところでしょうか。

こちら（シリコンバレーの大手企業・VC・有識者）のアドバイスに話を素直に耳を傾けようとしない
‐　すなわち、「プライド」でしょうか。上記1点目と重複する意味合いもありますし、次に挙げる「自社ブランドへの過信」との相関性もあろうかと思いますが、シリコンバレーで現地で頑張っていろいろと構築して行ったアメリカ側ネットワークから得られる知見や情報が戦略的に有効活用されずにお蔵入りする状態を指します。結果論に過ぎないかもしれませんが、何を決定するにも、現地で得られる知見やリソースを十分に活かさずに、本社からのご意向で意思決定が為されている文化が根強いことで、事業提携やM&A、人材の採用、ブランディング等、結局シリコンバレーのことを知らない本社の影響力が大きいまま物事が進むことで、的外れな（←現地から見て）決定ばかりとなってしまうのではないかと想像しています。
シリコンバレーの本流的なコミュニティは基本的にはとても開かれているエコシステムであると考えます。日本で見受けられるような排他性が感じられません。そして、そこに一度溶け込むことさえ出来れば、極めて有効的な情報が沢山飛び交います。そして、こちらの言うこと、考えに良く耳を傾けてくれることがほとんどです。その結果、アドバイスも非常に貴重なものであったり、こちら側が思いつかないことや角度から助言をもらえることが大半です（今のところの経験）。もちろん、そうした彼ら・彼女らに対しても同じように、こちらからアドバイスや情報を提供させていただくことも併せて非常に大切（安易な「情報交換」のことを指していません）。そのような「現地本流ネットワークからのインプット」に良く耳を傾けてみて、その価値をもう一度考え直すことも重要かもしれません。

日本国内で構築したブランドへの"過信"：
‐　日本国内では一流ブランドでも、海を渡れば全く通用しません。それは、大リーグを目指すNPBの一流選手の場合と似ている部分が多いですよね。シリコンバレー側の認知（さらに言えば、「Respect」）を得られる為には、働きかけていかない限り、得られません。しかしながら、現地シリコンバレー側の目から見ると、「自社ブランドにあまりにも身を任せた交渉をする」のが目につくと見られがちです。例えば、「我々は◎×です。我々はこうしたブランドと強みを持った会社です。従って、▲●という方針でパートナーを探しています」といったところで、シリコンバレー側の会社からすれば「Good luck!」で終わり。こちらのシリコンバレーでビジネスをしようとする会社が自分達の強みをどこまで理解してもらえて、結果何がしてもらえるのか、その部分が疎かになってしまえば、いくらブランドを醸し出されたところで、シリコンバレーのトップレベルの競合他社とは全く対等なレベルでの交渉にはなりません。前述の「相手の話を聞く力」と通じるのかもしれませんが、シリコンバレーが自分たちに何を求めているのか、そこをどう自社に活かして取り込められるか、という姿勢を貫いていく心構えが抜け落ちてしまっている為に、空振りの連続の挙句、撤退、縮小、Living-Dead状態に陥ってしまうのではないかと考えられます。

　では、成功した事例として捉えられる会社の代表の一つとして耳にするのは、ユニクロです（筆者はユニクロとほぼ同時期にサンフランシスコに成功裏に進出をされたMUJIも同様にシリコンバレーの勝ち組とみています）。さらに、最近はこちらシリコンバレーで日本のペットボトル系の日本茶を現地仕様に仕立てあげて存在感が出始めている伊藤園さんも良く好意的なお話を伺い、筆者も刺激を受けています（サンフランシスコ／シリコンバレー界隈のインキュベータや会社にビジネス等で日本から来られる方々は、こちらの自販機等に日本茶のペットボトルが用意されているのを良く目にする機会が増えてきているのが実感できると思います）。ユニクロの場合、あくまで推測ベースですが、かつて、一度米国進出を試みて失敗を経験しており、恐らく、そこで得られた教訓に進撃に受け止め、米国で受け入れられる為に必要な要素を理解し、それで、東海岸ニューヨークに旗艦店舗を旗揚げした結果、成功裏に事業が軌道にのり、その経験を今度は西海岸のカジュアルファッションのメッカであるサンフランシスコに活かすべく、2012年にユニオンスクェアの西海岸旗艦店舗を開店した結果、今も現地では多くの来店客で賑わっています。無論、時代の潮流に相まって乗ることが出来たことも功を奏したと考えられます。

　日本に拠点を置く欧米外資系企業（事業会社、金融機関）も、良く、「日本の市場にコミットしていない」「米国本社の意向が強すぎて身動きがとれない」「上司が次々と変わって長期的な戦略ロードマップが描けない」「あそこの会社はカントリーマネージャーがコロコロ変わるし方針が安定して取引したくない」という声が聞かれる会社は概ね日本でビジネスがうまくいっていない会社ばかりですが（筆者は投資銀行時代に両方を経験しました）、シリコンバレーで戦う日系企業も、全く同じ罠に陥ってしまっている、というのが実態といったところでしょうか。それらの抜け穴から脱皮できる組織が、これから躍進の場を構築していくことが出来るのかもしれません。

‐　シリコンバレー

The following post was written by one of the most successful foreign (a.k.a. non-Japanese) entrepreneurs residing in Japan, Mr. Terrie Lloyd (see bottom for more info), in his weekly blog post Terrie's Take.

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Over the last couple of years, after an abortive fundraising effort in 2015, I've been avoiding Venture Capitalists (VCs) or attending venture conferences, feeling that the venture funding industry is Japan is all about herd instinct and stereotypes and thus a waste of time for a foreign businessperson. However, I had second thoughts after a friend suddenly couldn't make it to the latest TechinAsia event held in Tokyo during September, and he kindly asked if me if I'd like to go in his place. I thought this would be a good chance to see if the street talk I'd been hearing about how we're now in the "golden age" of Japanese venture investing was true or not.

One of the speakers at TiA was Tim Romero, who has a very good weekly blog where he interviews movers and shakers in the Japanese start-up community. Tim has been around the track a couple of times himself, and in his interviews he is relentless in getting the CEO of the moment to share their secrets and how their industry works. Tim has been quite upbeat about the Japanese venture scene, and his contributions alongside TiA and Slush (a Finnish version of TiA) would indeed give you a feeling that things are starting to improve here.

And yet among start-ups in the international community, "international"
meaning resident foreigners or regular Japanese educated in part overseas, I still see very little VC investment taking place. So what's really going on?

As a bit of background, back in 2015 and the start of 2016, I personally visited and presented to about 25 Japanese VCs, for Japan Travel KK.
Given that the Inbound market was booming I thought that the timing couldn't be better, and our early sales results proved that there is an exciting business to be had. I received 24 rejections and one smallish offer at the time, and so wound up empty-handed but a lot wiser about my strategy and what we needed to do to present a better story.
Unfortunately, I got a somewhat depressing view of the state of venture capital in Japan.

In the course of that one-year period, I found that I could group those
25 VCs into 3 types: 1) Clueless kids and salarymen and not capable of researching or deciding anything, but with money to spend on a round led by someone else. This was by far the largest group, and the lack of smaller early stage deals shows their risk aversion - which is ironic given the nature of their business. Group 2) were a much smaller cohort of smart trans-pacific bilinguals who were obsessed with Silicon Valley trends, valuations, and business results, i.e., they have a unicorn-obsession. This group has plenty of cash and an ability to lead a round, but won't touch anything unless there is a vision of global domination, which means they are making a few over-optimistic bets on CEOs good at hype. Group 3) were smaller shops with sectoral expertise but just not enough people to manage the influx of opportunities, and they were the source of the most productive discussions. But, boy, are they conservative when it comes to dealing with a foreigner...

With Japan Travel I was told by the clueless Group 1 types that they thought the Inbound travel market was too small and that the space wasn't validated because no one has led a funding in the space (which is still true today). And yet, if they bothered to do some research (or to read our presentation), they would have seen the tell-tale signs of a major boom market. Now, in 2017, the Japanese Government says that the Inbound market is worth about JPY3trn in on-shore spending alone. My guess is that total spending on travel to Japan is around JPY5trn a year.

With the Group 2 "size matters" crowd, our focusing on one country meant lack of scalability and therefore an inability to feed their egos.

With the Group 3 realist group, the focus was on my foreigness, my age (not being in my twenties and thus being easy to take advantage of), and the company valuation - they didn't like the fact that we'd already spent half a million dollars developing the systems and capabilities of the company, even though this is a pittance compared to U.S. companies doing similar types of business.

In the end, I decided to continue bootstrapping, developing the business beyond just a portal and into an integrated travel solution provider. To do so, I have done small "friends-and-family" rounds and steadily put the pieces in place. You will have seen the occasional ads in Terrie's Take for each round we've raised (a big "thank you" to our investors).

So, back to TiA, I was interested to see if Tim was right that the VC scene has changed, and whether, as the TiA organizers were spruiking, we're in a Golden Age.

The TiA event took place over two days, held at the La Belle Salle Shibuya Garden building at the top of Dogenzaka in Shibuya - a suitably fashionable location. I showed up on Wednesday morning, registered and made my way in to listen to Dave Corbin, TiA's Japan CEO, give the opening address. There were about 400 people in the audience (my estimate), a pretty good number considering the tickets cost JPY15,000 for the public and JPY60,000 for investors. The attendees were a 30/70 mix of foreigners to Japanese, with most of the foreigners coming from Asia.

You could see that the representation matched Japan's influence around the region, with the biggest delegations being from Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Thailand. Certainly I'm aware of an expanding number of Japanese VC funds who are targeting their investments in these countries because of the lack of U.S. and European competition and also because of the rapidly expanding economies there.

I personally found the TiA lineup of speakers to be disappointing, revealing little about how to get things done, and over-focusing on validating the VC market in Japan. This is unfortunate, because from my many discussions with attendees, most people where there for two things
only: networking and funding. Yes, there was a "Speed Dating" section for pre-reserved meetings with Japanese VCs, but it was obvious that demand (by start-ups) outstripped supply and that the quality of supply of VCs was poor enough that TiA should seriously re-think its approach to Japan. In particular, it needs to help educate VC firms here how to prospect and build relationships with non-Japanese start-ups.

In spending some time hanging around the Speed Dating area, listening in on some of the conversations and getting a feel for whether Japanese VC has improved, I got the impression that things are still pretty pathetic. What I saw is kids from the VC departments of larger Japanese wannabee VC companies interviewing other kids who want to fund their start-ups. There was a definite lack of expertise, experience, and structure on both sides. For foreign start-ups, the interactions were made worse by major language and knowledge gaps. I came away thinking the following three things:

1. Low-grade human resources. Why are Japanese VCs willing to put their least experienced people into an environment where they are picking winners from losers? Having someone with little practical business experience and inability to evaluate technology isn't going to result in competent screening of prospects from a single meeting.

2. Poor screening process. One assumes that to be meaningful, most Japanese VCs are at least investing JPY20-JPY30m per firm, and this money doesn't grow on trees. For sure after the initial screening the investment will go in front of a committee, but when you are having a low-experience person with no screening structure or understanding of what the other party does, this significantly reduces the quality of deals for committee review, and a higher chance of loss of the investing company's assets. We can see the results of this in the poor returns that most Japanese VCs have (and perhaps why companies don't put their best people in those teams).

3. Low ability to think out of the box. I approached the Fujitsu booth on the behalf of a friend's software company, and found out that the staff really weren't interested in a business that was outside their frame of reference, even if the investee agreed to use their cloud platform and technology stack - which surely is the reason why Fujitsu even has a venture fund in the first place. Instead, they were there to hand out flyers and pens, and seem to have another more obscure process for making decisions on investment.

So, yeah, I didn't get a very favorable impression of the quality of VCs present, and it was disappointing to see foreign startups attracted by the TiA hype, try to figure out what the speed dating investor was really saying to them. Pretty much it was in the "We'll keep you hanging on until you stop calling us," ilk. I did also talk to several other more seasoned Japanese entrepreneurs there, whom I know, and they candidly shared that they were just going through the motions rather than expecting anything concrete to come out of the meetings.

To be fair, the TiA event was a good place to meet other start-ups, and there were several in the tourism sector who were very interesting. They may not find a source of funding in Japan, but hopefully other business opportunities will help justify the cost of attending the show.

I realize that TiA does not represent the whole universe of Japanese venture capital, and there were many active players in the market who didn't show up. But nonetheless, what I did see reminded me that the Japanese VC community is still immature and prone to risk-aversion - meaning that there will be precious few unicorns or even tech IPOs coming out of this market. While Softbank with its super fund is shaking things up and is making the overall sector numbers look pretty juicy, the reality is that Softbank is targeting much bigger investments in much later-stage companies, and current industry data is very skewed.
The fact is that VCs are still not doing much for real startups here.
Especially if you are not in your 20's, Japanese, and have a talent for PR and breakdancing (yes, a security firm CEO started his pitch this way).
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Source:  http://www.japaninc.com/tt916_not-quite-the-golden-age-for-Japanese-VC 

About Mr. Terrie Lloyd:
Terrie Lloyd is a 54-year dual-national of Australia and New Zealand, who has lived in Japan for 29 years. A "self-made man" in the truest sense, he formed his first company while in Japan on a working holiday visa at the age of 25. Since then, he has established another 18 companies of his own and many others for clients.
Lloyd has brought his investors 8 successful earn-outs: LINC Computer in Japan and Techman in Hong Kong sold to EDS in 1995, the Web division of LINC Media sold to Chinadotcom in 1999, Layer-8 Technologies spun out to ThetaMusic in 2003, DaiJob Software Inc. sold to Nikko Principal in 2004, DaiJob Inc. sold to Human Holdings in 2005, and Esphion Ltd. in New Zealand sold to Allot Communications Inc. of Israel in 2007. He is currently the founder of JapanTravel.com, one of the premier Japan inbound travel destination and travel agency.