Fund Creation

Keisuke Oba serves as President and CEO and is the firm's founder, suggesting he holds ultimate authority over investment committee decisions. The firm operates with a lean senior team typical of a boutique asset manager, though specific additional investment professionals are not publicly named. Given the firm's size and specialist focus, Oba likely remains closely involved in both secondary pricing and direct venture allocations.

Fund Creation sources LP interests primarily from Japanese financial institutions, regional banks, corporate pension funds, and corporate venturing arms seeking to rationalize legacy venture portfolios. The firm benefits from two decades of operational history in Tokyo, which provides a proprietary network of relationships with fund-of-funds managers and institutional LPs that regularly cycle out of older vintages. Unlike global secondary advisors, Fund Creation does not rely on broad auction processes — many of its transactions are negotiated bilaterally with sellers who value confidentiality over price discovery.

Yes, Fund Creation is overwhelmingly Japan-focused. Its secondary purchases involve LP interests in domestic venture funds, and its direct investments concentrate on Japanese early-to-growth-stage companies. While the firm may occasionally acquire stakes in pan-Asian funds where a significant portion of the underlying portfolio is Japan-exposed, its investor base, sourcing network, and execution capability are all anchored in Tokyo.

Fund Creation primarily executes traditional LP-led secondaries — purchasing limited partner interests in existing Japanese venture capital funds. It also participates in GP-led transactions, including continuation vehicles and fund restructurings, though these are less common in the Japanese venture market than in US and European private equity. Deal sizes are typically small to mid-sized relative to global standards, reflecting the fragmented nature of Japanese LP bases and the absence of large pension plans heavily allocated to domestic venture.

Fund Creation is structured as an asset manager, not a family office. It manages commingled secondary funds and separate accounts on behalf of Japanese institutional investors, including pension funds, regional banks, and corporate plans. There is no evidence of a single-family wealth origin backing the firm, and Keisuke Oba's background is in institutional finance rather than family wealth management.

Fund Creation targets early-to-growth-stage companies in Japan through its direct venture allocation. Sectors of interest include enterprise technology and consumer services, where the firm can leverage relationships with domestic corporations to support eventual trade sales. The direct venture strategy is secondary in scale to its secondaries business but provides origination intelligence that informs secondary pricing and fund selection.

Fund Creation occupies a narrow and defensible niche: it is one of the few dedicated venture secondary buyers in Japan, a market where global participants like Ardian, Lexington Partners, and Coller Capital have limited direct origination capability. Its specialization in small-to-mid-sized LP interest purchases among Japanese institutions, combined with a two-decade track record, provides vintage-year performance data that is difficult for new entrants to replicate. The firm does not compete for large-cap buyout secondaries or lead GP-led deals outside Japan.