Overview

Gender

male

Investor Type

Investment Partner

Director, Founding Partner of GMO VenturePartners, Inc., Japanese corporate VC firm, a member of GMO Internet Group. Its 40 portfolio companies include 5 IPOs: Qihoo 360 Technology (NYSE), Fullspeed (TSE), Accelmark (TSE), NEXT (TSE), Vector (TSE). Since 2005, GMO VenturePartners has operated a number of funds, approx. 28 Million USD under management.
He is also a co-founder, Director of board, Executive Vice President, head of Strategic department of GMO Payment Gateway, Inc., Largest Online Payment Service Provider in Japan with more than 44,000 online merchants. The only Tokyo Stock Exchange listed online PSP, public since 2005, current market cap is approx. 600M USD.
Prior to that, Ryu worked for JAFCO, the largest VC in Japan and JAFCO Ventures in Silicon Valley, in charge of Business Development and Japanese connection of its portfolio companies.
One of the most successful investments at that time was GMO Internet, Inc. (TSE: 9449) headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, the first internet startup which went public in Japan at 1999, now a comprehensive provider of industry-leading Internet solutions including domain name registration, cloud-based and traditional hosting, ecommerce, security, and payment processing services that each hold the top share of their respective markets in Japan. Other key business areas for the Group include online securities/FX trading, Internet advertising, search engine marketing and online research, and smartphone game development and publishing.
Ryu earned his B.A. degree from Waseda University.