Tetsu Nakajima

Tetsu Nakajima is the Founder and General Partner of 15th Rock Ventures, an early-stage investment firm based in Tokyo, Japan. He began his career spending eight years as an engineer at Toshiba's R&D Center, where he filed dozens of patents while working on wireless communications and semiconductor chip design. Transitioning to venture capital, Nakajima joined the Innovation Network Corporation of Japan in 2009 before serving as Chief Investment Officer at Mistletoe starting in 2017, overseeing portfolios across 14 countries. At 15th Rock Ventures, he has directed 32 investments to date, including a recent Series A allocation to robotics developer Robust.AI in April 2025. Nakajima leverages his master's degree in engineering from Hokkaido University to focus on human augmentation technologies, specifically targeting seed and pre-IPO startups advancing artificial intelligence, robotics, and brain-machine interfaces.