Phil Wickham

Phil Wickham is a Founder and General Partner of Sozo Ventures. In addition to Sozo, Mr. Wickham serves as the Executive Chairman of the Kauffman Fellows in Palo Alto, California. Mr. Wickham is a veteran venture investor and startup entrepreneur. Early in his career he co-founded the publishing company Reference Media in Tokyo, Japan, grew it to scale and sold it to the Princeton Review, where he became VP of Sales for Japan and Korea. Later, Mr. Wickham served as General Partner at JAFCO America Ventures, a billion-dollar fund backed by leading Japanese financial and technology players such as Hitachi, Mitsubishi, NEC, Itochu, Nomura, and Nippon Life Insurance. At JAFCO, he led the creation of strategic services for invested companies with more than 40 corporate LPs. Mr. Wickham went on to become a partner and run U.S. operations for Copan, a European venture fund based in Munich, Germany, where he also served on the Board. He has shepherded more than 40 investments, including Ikanos, Web Methods, Com21, Square, Twitter, Palantir, ServiceMax, Lotame and Handshake. Mr. Wickham currently serves on the board of Lotame and serves as an advisor to Angular Ventures (London), Cross Culture Ventures and Taro Ventures (Tokyo). He is a past advisor to the Creandum Fund in Stockholm.