ERA had the immense pleasure of welcoming Mr. Koichi Hagiuda, Minister of Economy, Trade, and Industry on Thursday, May 5 to ERA’s Union Square office. 

The Minister met and discussed startups and the NYC startup ecosystem with a panel of startup investors, founders and experts, comprised of:

• Murat Aktihanoglu, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of ERA and Remarkable Ventures Climate 
• Howard Morgan, Chairman of B Capital Group
• Mark Schneider, Chairman of New York Angels 
• Mark D’Amore, Associate Dean of Cornell Tech
• Satoru Sasozaki, CEO and Co-Founder of Waffle Journal
• Oisin O'Brien, Vice President, GridMarket

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JETRO New York President, Kenichi Kawamoto, mediated the roundtable discussion. 

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The Minister’s visit commenced with a tour of the startup accelerator space and was followed by a group discussion on Japanese and NYC startup ecosystems and the path for US-based VCs’ investment in Japanese startups. 

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ERA expresses deep gratitude toward METI Minister Hagiuda-san for his engagement and enthusiasm for startups, as well as toward our partner JETRO New York’s Daiki Nakajima for organizing this wonderful meeting. 

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