Shinji joined Investor Growth Capital Asia Limited as Vice President since its inception in June 2002, having previously been with imGO Limited, which focused on technology venture capital investments. Prior to that, Shinji was with Antfactory Japan, private equity company established by Antfactory UK and Nikko Securities, where he was Chief Financial Officer. While at Antfactory Japan, Shinji led the initiative to set up the company as the first employee and was responsible for investment and fund raising. He led some investments and raised one private equity fund.
Before Antfactory Japan, Shinji was with Sumitomo Bank where he specialized in private equity investment. He took the lead to set up the private equity arm of Sumitomo Bank and established SB Investment (now NIF SMBC Ventures). The business grew from 2 staff at the beginning to a headcount of 48 after five years. While at SB Investment, he invested in 146 companies. 26 of these investee companies became publicly held companies and 6 were sold to major companies, resulting in a net IRR of 26%. Major successful investments are Atlas, Japan Care Service, Joint Corporation. In 2000, he led the establishment and management of an IT venture fund which was a joint collaboration between SB Investment and NTT-ME. He also oversaw a second project with the objective of providing IT support alongside investment for publicly floated companies (10 major companies invested, including NEC, Sumitomo Corp, Yasuda Fire & Marine Insurance). This fund was a collaboration between SB Investment and Makoto Naruke, ex-President of Microsoft Japan. Shinji holds a BA in Commercial Science from Hitotsubashi University and gave a lecture on Venture Capital at the university for half a year.