About
Haruka Takamori is a product leader and two-time founder working across fintech, venture capital and cross-border startups. She started her career in investment banking at SMBC Nikko, then joined Plug and Play Japan and later worked as a venture capitalist at STRIVE. While at STRIVE she co-founded Cruzzie, an enterprise software startup, and she was one of the original co-founders of the Startup Co-Creation Community (SCC). In 2024 she wrote that she had left venture capital to build Syval in the San Francisco Bay Area, a data-driven fintech product that helps Gen Z students understand their spending and build saving habits. Haruka brings a founder-investor perspective on product discovery, consumer fintech, early-stage fundraising, and moving from Japan to the US market. Her work gives her direct exposure to both sides of the table: how investors screen startups and how founders test an idea with users before launch. Haruka is particularly relevant to conversations around customer discovery, building for Gen Z users, the switch from investor to founder, and starting a company in the US as a founder from Asia.