Strategic Investing
We're aligned with strategic investors where the primary goal is to fund a partnership to drive revenue. We make direct investments, fund joint ventures and bring other resources to the table.
We're aligned with strategic investors where the primary goal is to fund a partnership to drive revenue. We make direct investments, fund joint ventures and bring other resources to the table.
We'll jointly develop the market entry strategy and build the business plan. Once funded, we'll assist with recruitment, localization, sales & support. Our team has develop 100s of plans for over 30 years.
With strategic investors the business scales faster than building out a market on your own. We'll assist with recruitment, localization, sales & support. Learning how to scale operations with us, can help you globally.
We were there when a floppy disk drive manufacturer needed an investment and help with its supply-chain. Then the internet came along and we partnered and invested with AOL. Then email with Bigfoot Interactive. Commerce with Linkshare. Adtech with Ad.com. Social with Sprinklr.
Alignment is the key to success and we operationalize the relationship with our strategics. Knowing how to manage limited resources, across International teams is critical to success. We're sensitive to this and know how to manage this process.
Our mission is to help companies reach global success by winning in one of the world's largest commercial markets.
Understanding how profoundly cultural differences plays a key role to success in opening new markets. Our team are native Japanese, European and American. We've worked together for 30 years and understand how to leverage cultures to create better product experiences.
Our True North is when we successfully grab market share, create great jobs, and have a profitable return on our investment.
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Japan is home to a plethora of world-class companies. Wishbone works with many market leaders to identify key areas of focus that are driving change across their industries. The strategic investors with whom we work are leading media, consumer brands, trading companies, retailers, agencies, logistics, energy, and industrial manufacturers. Over the past several years, we've worked on social media management, energy, SAAS, communications, 5G, security, industrial, and health.
Ideally, growth-stage companies that are ready to move quickly and have already launched in one international market are preferred. However, many great ideas are copied internationally before you have a chance to get there, so we recognize the importance of getting involved early. Wishbone views every partnership as a revenue opportunity rather than a stage. We're not focused on getting into an investment at a certain stage; we care about market readiness and potential.
We define investment as the total capital needed to form a strategic alliance and launch the business. This includes a direct equity investment as well as the capital commitment needed to drive sales and support. There is no minimum. We've started with a capital commitment of $100,000 to $50 million in the case of a joint venture company.
We are champions, not decision-makers. Our strategic partners understand Wishbone is selective, and we're expected to explore the market potential before we make recommendations. We have executive support for what we do, and they expect us to do the heavy lifting in terms of due diligence, legal, financial, and go-to-market strategy.
We are not a fund. Wishbone is aligned with corporate innovation programs as a subset of their CVC program. Our "Strategic VC as a Service" mandate is to only invest when there is a partnership to open a market through the formation of an alliance. That makes us different from VC and CVC programs, which participate most often as passive investors. Investments are coupled with a business strategy that aligns with global revenue targets for both sides. What makes us different is that we don't compete with VCs in a deal. We work together to find an opportunity to include our strategic investors when the timing is right. It may be this round or the next. We're long-term focused, and with us, it all starts with opening a market.
Our team has been investing strategically for over 30 years, and our playbook is designed to fast track the market research and commercial discussion phases. Our goal is to get to market quickly. Typical CVC programs take a wait-and-see approach to their investment strategy. We move as quickly as possible to determine if the market opportunities exist and, if so, put the resources together to close and fructify the alliance. We're not hired to raise money; we're hired to build businesses with speed and scale.
We know that a successful company will raise multiple rounds. As a strategic investor, we're focused on the long term. Our relationship starts with a partnership agreement and most often ends with investor documents. Sometimes the timing is perfect; other times we invest later. Either way, we know if we do things right, the lead investor will let us in. Our strategic partners are brands you’d want to be associated with. Rarely do we invest in a partnership where we don't take advantage of a direct investment opportunity when offered.
The majority of the companies we deal with have little experience in forming an international partnership or joint venture, so we take the lead. We create all the commercial agreements, including technology licenses, trademarks, and support. Should we form a joint venture company, we'll take the lead in creating all the investor agreements, employee and advisor stock-option programs, employment agreements, etc. Wishbone has over 30 years’ experience forming these types of commercial alliances.
In Japan our strategics are the lead investors. When we participate in a direct investment, we're looking for a local lead investor.
We've lived in Silicon Valley, New York, Boston and invested across USA for over 30 years. Since 2017, we've been active in both East & Western Europe, as well as India. Innovation is everywhere and our strategics are multi-nationals looking for technology everywhere.
