Now that vaccinations are finally ramping up here in Japan, and people have adapted to operating under this endemic (which was always essentially the case in Japan much more than in western countries), we are enthusiastic to resume our VC internship program.

Japan’s border restrictions still remain quite tight, however, so we are unfortunately not in a position to offer foreign interns a valid residency visa right now, as we have done in the past. I am hoping this will change soon, but in the meantime we are willing to entertain remote assignment for anyone comfortable with such an arrangement. We also remain accredited with the educational systems of many countries, which means that we will continue to offer course credit for those interested.

Last but not least, I’d like to take a moment to publicly commend the brilliant interns who had come to work with us here in Tokyo prior to the pandemic: Adelson Goncalves, Annie Chen, Lucile Nurit, Sayaka Ueda, Andréas Zaidan, Clarisse Lam, Wen-Chiao Su, Patrick West-Cahill, and Victor de Coninck. You are all heroes who will go far in your careers, and I will always treasure our valuable collaboration.

Venture capital internship:

• Time period: 3 to 6 months, flexible start date
• Main location: Tokyo (if valid visa), but remote assignment possible

Opportunity:

• access to investment pitches, board meetings, negotiations, strategy discussions, deal evaluations, and any other related activities that occur during the period of the internship
• exposure to an array of inspirational entrepreneurs and ventures
• training in the methods, practices, and tools employed in the venture capital business
• presuming good performance, an endorsed recommendation into a variety of careers
• the learning opportunity of a lifetime

Minimum qualifications:

• a self-starting individual able to work autonomously in an unstructured environment (fun but chaotic)
• open-mind, interest in Japanese culture (language ability not required)
• intellectual curiosity, interest in venture capital and technology innovation

For interested candidates:

Please send your CV in .pdf format (no cover letter please) to: internship@shizen.vc