TOKYO -- Kunihiko Ono, president of Kyoto-based farming startup Sakanotochu, had a problem that many executives face: jittery investors.
In May, his company raised 600 million yen ($5.56 million) in a private placement with venture capital along with money from A-Five, a public-private investment fund that receives monies from the agriculture ministry. But one of Ono's investors was worried, claiming that A-Five knows little about farming and has a reputation for interfering with the companies in which it invests.
