Jun Wakabayashi
Principal at AppWorks
Taiwan
Overview
Work Experience
Chief of Staff
2025 - Current
Automating the world of audit, starting first with digital ads. Backed by Mucker Capital, Ascend Vietnam Ventures, AppWorks, Plug n Play, and Kyber Knight
Venture Advisor
2025
Helping founders and GPs bridge the US with Asia
Principal
2023 - 2025
Led our "Beacon Funds" program, a strategic fund-of-fund initiative that focused on backing the next generation of GPs while generating direct deal flow for our flagship VC fund. - Oversaw investments into 25 GPs operating across Asia, US, and web3 - Generated >15% of the main VC fund's direct deal flow into startups - Engaged in an insane amount of networking with VCs and founders to stay in the loop
Associate
2022 - 2023
Earned my stripes as a VC
Analyst
2017 - 2022
Got the lay of the land
International Projects Director
2015 - 2017
• Co-authored 7 business intelligence reports profiling countries’ energy or healthcare & life sciences sectors in partnership with PennWell’s The Oil & Gas Financial Journal & UBM’s Pharmaceutical Executive, together exceeding 35,000 subscribers worldwide • Conducted primary research on target markets through over 300 face-to-face interviews with high-ranking government officials, trade associations, and C-level executives in both emerging and developed markets across Western & Eastern Europe, MENA, & APAC • Performed commercial and editorial due diligence on over 200 startups, SMEs, and MNCs with revenues ranging from <USD 1M to USD 50B by analyzing securities filings, annual reports, press releases, media coverage, and/or social media platforms • Led teams of 2-3 editorial and business development staff for 3 to 6-month projects spanning USD 120k to USD 300k in sales, while managing all on-the-ground operations including logistics, budgeting, on-board training, copyediting deliverables, and liaising with remote management team • Monitored macro/micro trends via secondary resources and media outlets to produce executive-level interview content and articles for two leading B2B web platforms—PharmaBoardroom & EnergyBoardroom—collectively boasting 36,000+ unique monthly visitors
Risk Assurance Associate
2013 - 2015
• Conduct risk assessments of IT governance and information systems in banking, capital markets, and insurance Fortune 500 firms • Evaluate the protection of information assets in areas regarding information security, business continuity, and disaster recovery Selected Project Experience: Collaborated on change management policy & compliance evaluation of major investment bank • Performed gap analysis over risk management’s global enterprise policies and 9 business silos’ standards and procedures • Conducted substantive procedures evaluating the risk categorization of change requests in mainframe & distributed systems • Identified 3 inconsistencies in the global enterprise standard and 11 value-added observations across all business silos Executed business impact analyses over major insurance provider’s 401k automatic enrollment and contribution escalation systems • Assessed 25 management-identified system issues against 128 retirement 401k plans within a 2 week turnaround • Identified 9 defective retirement plans with the consolidated value of plan assets potentially impacted totaling ~$115M • Augmented inspection procedures through research of contribution arrangement features for Qualified and Effective plans Assessed effectiveness and regulatory compliance of risk control frameworks encompassed in SSAE16 for trading-solutions vendor • Facilitated walkthroughs with relevant business owners and conducted tests of operating effectiveness for 6 control objectives • Identified weakness over logical security of application access; managed correspondence of remediation procedures with client • Coordinated bi-weekly Budget vs Actuals analysis with manager; repositioned 20 additional hours to service delivery center
Intern
2011 - 2011
• Processed ACH and legal compliance work for a four year-old robo-advisor startup with >500M AUM • Validated daily MIS reports by cross referencing identification databases, Case Manager, and SugarCLI reports • Reconciled the holding company’s Quickbook records with subsidiary accounts on a monthly basis • Compiled and regularly updated press kit by monitoring the company’s media coverage via news outlets, magazines, & blogs
Betterment is an online investment company that offers investing and retirement solutions for their current clients and clients-to-be.
Raised $435,000,000.00 from Kinnevik, Aflac Global Ventures, ID8 Investments, Citi Ventures, The Private Shares Fund, Bessemer Venture Partners, Francisco Partners, Sukna Ventures, Anthemis and Globespan Capital Partners.
Education
Bachelors
2011 - 2013