LEADERS IN GLOBAL VENTURE INVESTMENT
Since the 1980s, DEFTA Partners has identified, nurtured, and funded companies with innovative technologies. With offices in San Francisco, Tokyo, and Hong Kong, DEFTA has led many companies in North America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East to global success.
OUR FOCUS
Healthcare Focus
Today, DEFTA Partners foresees new opportunities in the integration of innovations in information and communication technology, biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and other healthcare fields. With a vision to enable every person to live a healthy life until his/her last moment, we are investing in companies developing advanced therapeutics, health ICT, and enabling technologies.
ICT Focus
In the late 1990s, DEFTA Partners predicted that the fundamental structure of information technology would shift from a computation-centric model to what we call the pervasive ubiquitous communications (PUC) model. Our PUC vision has paved the way for successes of technology companies in fields like embedded devices, digital TV, and online security.
Global Focus
Since the 1980s, DEFTA Partners has invested in more than 100 companies in the U.S., U.K., Israel, Bangladesh, and Japan. We bring hands-on global expertise to our portfolio companies, enabling them to scale up internationally. Sustainable growth in the developing world is also our goal. In Bangladesh, for example, we work with BRAC, the world’s largest NGO, in establishing and operating a joint venture bracNet, an internet service provider.
Meet the Team
Kyoko Watanabe
Managing Director,
DEFTA Corporation
Baldev Madahar
CFO,
DEFTA Corporation
Masahide (Masa) Isono
Principal,
DEFTA Corporation
Atsushi Yoshida
Director of Administration
DEFTA Capital
Makoto Yamada
Manager,
Business Development Division
DEFTA Capital
Satoshi Tsubotani
General Manager of
Business Development
DEFTA Capital
George Hara
Group Chairman & CEO,
DEFTA Partners
Susumu Kaminaga
Board Director,
DEFTA Capital
Mikio Tanji
Executive Officer,
DEFTA Capital
May Takahashi
Investment & Business
Development Manager,
DEFTA Corporation
Yoshiko Kumachi-Takaike
Director of the Board,
DEFTA Capital
Yoshiyuki Katsuragi
Director of Business Development
DEFTA Capital
PORTFOLIO
Founder
George Hara is an archaeologist and successful entrepreneur. While he was a graduate student at Stanford University in 1981, George founded a successful startup developing fiber optics display systems. He then established DEFTA Partners, under which he has funded and led many early-stage technology companies in the US, Europe and Israel to success, including the first gene therapy company Viagene, the first antisense therapy company Isis Pharmaceuticals, and the first bioinformatics company Arris Pharmaceuticals. He has recently launched DEFTA Healthcare Technologies to fund and grow technology companies that are enabling every person to lead a healthy life until his/her final moment.
In the Japanese government, George has held roles of Senior Advisor to the Minister of Finance from 2005 to 2009, Deputy Chairman of the Expert Panel of the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy, the Prime Minister’s Special Commissioner on the Government Tax Panel, a Member of the Industrial Structure Council of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, and a Member of the ICT council of the Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications. Under his vision of Public Interest Capitalism and through these roles, George works to build a framework to commercialize and industrialize new technologies and to rebuild the country’s fiscal health while reducing the tax rates and increasing tax revenues at the same time.
NEWS
DEFTA portfolio Aegle Therapeutics Announces Award of Grant by U.S. Department of Defense's ("DoD") Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs ("CDMRP") for Development of AGLE-102
Aegle Therapeutics Corporation, a first-in-class biotechnology company developing extracellular vesicles as therapy, today announced that the Company has been awarded a grant by the U.S. DoD's CDMRP to fund the continued development of the Company's product candidate AGLE-102™. The grant will support clinical manufacturing and the completion of a phase 1 clinical study in burn patients.
"The awarding of this grant is an important step in advancing Aegle's AGLE-102 as a potential therapy to treat severe burns," commented Evangelos Badiavas, Aegle's Chief Scientific Officer. "AGLE-102's unique properties and mechanism of action make it a potentially promising choice for clinical evaluation in this area of high unmet medical need."
"We are honored to be selected for this award from the U.S. DoD," said Shelley Hartman, Aegle's Chief Executive Officer. "This grant will enable us to advance the clinical development of AGLE-102 as a potential treatment for both military and civilian burn patients alike."
Abilitech Medical Inc., the Minneapolis medical-device startup that won the Minnesota Cup last year, on Tuesday said it launched Abilitech Assist, a cornerstone product in its plans for wearable tech that helps people with limited movement in their arms.
“This has been my dream for over four years,” Angie Zavoral Conley, the company’s founder and chief executive, said in an interview.
“Our device allows the arm and shoulder to move effortlessly, much like in a swimming pool,” she said. “We work with [patients], clinicians and caregivers. This includes input from an engineer on our team who lives with a spinal cord injury.”
The Assist supports the shoulder and elbow, and software customizes a “spring tension” to lift light objects such as a fork, phone or water bottle.
The Food and Drug Administration classified the Assist as a wearable product, which allowed Abilitech to commercialize it at the same time it continues clinical trials at the University of Minnesota and Gillette Children’s Specialty Healthcare. Other collaborates include HealthPartners and Allina Health’s Courage Kenny Rehabilitation Institute.”
QuantuMDx and Ontera, have announced a collaboration to create a next-generation solution for blood stream infection and drug resistance detection. The technology will be based on our rapid cell/sample preparation technology, Capture-XT® and Ontera’s powerful nanopore biosensor, currently utilized in their SAM and DUO Nano platforms.
The combined technologies should enable clinicians to quickly interrogate blood specimens of those presenting with sepsis signs and symptoms, allowing guided ‘right first time’ care management, at the bedside.
Sepsis affects more than 30 million people worldwide every year leading to an estimated 6 million deaths. If it’s not recognized early and managed promptly with targeted antibiotics, sepsis can lead to septic shock, multiple organ failure and death.
QuantuMDx’s revolutionary Capture-XT® technology captures, concentrates and enriches targeted pathogens from a large sample volume, quickly enabling visual diagnosis and downstream utilization, such as drug-susceptibility analysis, PCR, NGS and now nanopore detection, with this collaboration.
Ontera’s single pore platform provides fast amplification of multiple bacterial targets, differentiation between antibiotic resistant and susceptible strains. The company uses silicon nanopore for in-minutes quantitative measurement of nucleic acids, proteins and small molecules, avoiding time-consuming laboratory procedures that can delay lifesaving, fast and precise treatment.
CONTACT
San Francisco
111 Pine Street, Suite 1410
San Francisco, CA 94111, USA
Tel: +1 (415) 433-2262
Tokyo
15th Floor, Yokohama Mitsui Bldg.
1-1-2 Takashima, Nishi-ku
Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa 220-0011
Tel: +81 (45)-232-4280
Email: info@deftapartners.com