Kyocera Corporation, founded in 1959 and headquartered in Kyoto, Japan, started as a fine ceramics manufacturer and has since diversified into many other industries. Their core competencies include advanced materials such as technical ceramics serving industries like medical, nuclear, aerospace and defense. The company operates globally, with 293 subsidiaries, and through innovation and acquisition now reports sales of approximately 2.004 trillion yen ($13.27 billion).
Kyocera is recognized for its innovation, featuring among the “Top 100 Global Innovators.” With a strong commitment to sustainability and technological advancement, Kyocera strives to contribute to societal progress through its diverse product lines and corporate philosophy.
Last year, the firm launched a new $60 million venture capital arm with a mission to invest in emerging technologies, both strategic and non-strategic, that align with their core markets. With a flexible mandate, Kyocera’s innovation team is always on the lookout for exciting opportunities, but navigating the fast-moving world of venture capital comes with its own set of challenges.
One of the biggest challenges they face is getting up to speed on new sectors quickly. When a company pitches in an unfamiliar space, the team needs to understand the landscape, the problems being solved, and how other players are approaching them.
Leading the team, Senior Associate Shiva Chandra is responsible for ensuring that every company, technology, or concept is well researched and meets the strategic view of Kyocera. He states, “Venture capital is built on pattern recognition, but existing research tools such as Pitchbook don’t always make this easy. Many rely on manual keyword searches or topic links that lack the deeper context needed to form a clear thesis. While talking to startups and industry insiders provides some insights, it’s often not enough to gain a comprehensive view.”
Shiva continues, “Speed is another critical factor. Deals move fast, and the team must strike a balance between conviction and execution. Sometimes, an opportunity is compelling, but there are still unanswered questions about the competitive landscape or the company’s approach. Other times, they simply don’t have enough time to develop full confidence in a deal before the round closes. Traditional research methods don’t always scale efficiently, making it difficult to move quickly while maintaining strong investment decisions.”
The new capital venture arm has been designed to be a generalist deep-tech fund with a broad mandate, constantly shifting focus across different industries. Building expertise in each new space was a challenge, but their commitment to supporting startups remains strong. By leveraging Kyocera’s resources, they aim to create a meaningful alignment between portfolio companies and business units, offering founders a unique value proposition beyond just capital.
Having worked with Pitchbook previously and finding no solution, Shiva decided to implement FounderNest after a successful demonstration where he could see instant value. FounderNest has allowed Shiva and the team to interact with the platform using natural language, making research and discovery more intuitive and efficient.
With AI-driven prompt engineering, the team can refine their approach to identifying emerging patterns and discovering relevant companies more effectively. Instead of relying solely on traditional search methods or outdated data solutions, they can iterate and improve their search criteria based on the multiple ways companies compete within a given space.
Shiva mentioned that new features launched by FounderNest further enhance the platform’s capabilities. “The ability to link directly to recent news and conduct company lookups streamlines the research process. Instead of starting with a specific problem or technology, users can begin with a particular company and let the platform surface others that operate similarly. This dramatically speeds up the process of understanding a new space, providing valuable insights into the competitive landscape and the different approaches companies are taking. FounderNest has been a game-changer for us.”
Since incorporating FounderNest into their workflows only a few months ago, Kyocera are already seeing tangible benefits. “The platform has significantly improved both the speed and quality of the data the team can access, allowing them to make more informed investment decisions with greater efficiency”, Shiva stated.
By interacting with FounderNest in natural language, they can quickly refine their searches and iterate as they dive deeper into a particular space. The system helps them pick up on patterns, company positioning, marketing strategies, and processes - placing all of this information in the right context to better understand the competitive landscape. This makes it easier to identify key players and how they are approaching a problem.
The intuitive nature of the platform has dramatically accelerated the process of discovering relevant companies compared to traditional methods. With enhanced speed, scalability, and execution, the team can move faster on high-potential opportunities without sacrificing depth of research.
Additionally, FounderNest delivers far more relevant results than other tools they’ve used in the past. By reducing false positives where irrelevant companies would typically clutter their search results, this saved the team valuable time and increased overall productivity.
Kyocera’s success criteria focus on three key goals:
While they are still in the early stages of actively deploying capital, having ramped up over the past six months, the outlook is promising. In just two months of using FounderNest, the team has already seen significant improvements compared to their previous tool. The platform allows them to easily map out market opportunities for new technologies and concepts, giving them a clearer view of the landscape.
Previously, much of their work was focused on exploratory thesis development, but FounderNest has already surfaced high-quality opportunities that are now actively being considered for investment. The platform’s deep search capabilities also help them identify broader industry patterns, including trends that major incumbents have been following over the past four to five years. This not only strengthens their ability to spot promising startups but also helps them understand the potential acquirers and exit opportunities within a given space.
By improving deal flow, FounderNest is directly supporting their ability to hit all three KPIs. While inbound opportunities have been strong, outbound sourcing has always been more challenging, requiring a sharper market perspective. FounderNest provides exactly that, helping them better understand market dynamics and identify specific problems worth solving. As a result, the quality of opportunities moving through their due diligence process has improved, leading to a stronger investment pipeline.
Shiva states, “The improved deal flow has also had a direct impact on our investment close rate, meaning we are well on our way to meeting our second KPI, closing investments. When it comes to partnerships, our strong industry reputation through Kyocera has always given us an advantage, but FounderNest has helped accelerate this even further by uncovering additional high-quality opportunities. Ultimately, by leveraging FounderNest to improve deal flow, we are successfully positioned to achieve our broader investment and partnership goals.”
As Kyocera’s workflows continue to evolve, the team is moving beyond just exploratory research. They are now using FounderNest not only to map out new spaces but also to identify specific targets and analyze company patterns, core technologies, and direct competitors with greater precision.
Looking ahead, Shiva plans to further integrate FounderNest into their workflows, leveraging its collaborative capabilities to gain even deeper insights. By refining their use of the platform, they aim to pinpoint exactly which companies and spaces present the strongest investment opportunities, ensuring they stay ahead in an increasingly competitive landscape.
“FounderNest has been incredibly valuable in mapping out the market, providing key insights such as company founding dates, funding history, and expanding our reach to more relevant companies. It’s naturally helping us meet our KPIs by streamlining our access to the right opportunities.”
Shiva Chandra (Senior Associate)
The team utilizes a suite of tools to support their workflow. Email remains a core communication channel, while a software vendor for dealflow pipeline management is used. FounderNest plays a key role in providing market intelligence, helping them uncover trends and identify investment opportunities ready to add to their pipeline. Additionally, they occasionally use other platforms as needed to connect with subject matter experts or professionals with specific backgrounds for insights into a particular space.
