Our Team & Advisors
Reina Nakamura
General Partner
Reina leads Lyra Ventures as general partner. Her passion for how technology is reshaping the fashion industry, and her experience investing in Asian markets, led her to recognise the opportunity for a unique fund dedicated to support startups re-inventing the business of fashion with catalyst for growth in Asia. Reina works closely with a wide network of experts in fashion technology from around the globe.
Previously Reina was a senior member at Cento Ventures, where she involved in deal assessment and portfolio support. Her particular focus has been on partnership development between startups and both corporates and investors. Reina did cross-border M&A and defence advisory at Lazard Frere KK, where she helped Japanese corporations assess & execute deal opportunities. Before Lazard, Reina worked at Japanese consulting and investment firm Dream Incubator Singapore, where she supported Japanese clients’ entry into Indonesia, India, and Malaysia, and assisted strategic partnerships and M&A with local corporates.
Reina holds a BA of Laws, Political Science from Keio University in Japan. She is fluent in Japanese, English and Bahasa Indonesia.
Debra Langley
Venture Partner
Debra is based in Singapore and is an advisor to fashion, retail and related technology brands, working with them on brand and product positioning, international expansion and funding strategies. She is a Board Director at WRAP, a non-profit based in Arlington, VA, USA that is dedicated to ensuring social compliance and integrity in global manufacturing, and she serves on the Advisory Board for DesignSingapore Council, Singapore’s national agency for design. She is also a member of the Advisory Council for Vogue Singapore, and a mentor in the FarFetch X Outlier Ventures Dream Assembly Base Camp accelerator for Web3 luxury fashion and commerce.
Previously, Debra was the CEO of a retail venture specialising in contemporary Asian fashion brands that was an early omnichannel proposition. Before this, she was President, DKNY JEANS International, leading the business in all non-US markets, and President Asia-Pacific for Borderlinx, a global ecommerce enabler. Prior to that, she was a co-founder of an online health and wellness platform in partnership with philanthropist Michael Milken, and held a business development position in New York for the international division of the Hearst Corporation.
Debra is a US and New Zealand citizen, and a Singapore Permanent Resident.
Alicia Teo
Associate
Alicia has broad experience across consumer & B2B tech, having worked with startups and strategic VCs in six cities around the world. She is an Israel-Asia Leaders Fellow and the co-founder of Makers with a Mission, an Israeli non-profit focused on empowering disabled communities through inclusive design.
Suraya Goddard
Operations Manager
Suraya is the operations manager and team assistant in Lyra Ventures. Suraya has been head of operations at a digitally-native consumer brand, a sub-surface analyst for Woodside Energy, and specialised in corporate actions at Commonwealth Bank. Suraya holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Economics and Corporate Finance) from the University of Western Australia.
Jonathan Price
Advisor
Jonathan Price is a seasoned retail and consumer executive with over 30 years of experience. As the advisor to Lyra Ventures, he brings the experts both on operation and investment, drawn from years of his experience at TPG Capital, and leading global retailers such as Marks and Spencer PLC, The Body Shop. He also works closely with our founders to help them scale the business to achieve critical growth.
He started his career working for the British retailer Marks and Spencer PLC and during his 15 year tenure with this company he held a variety of key positions with his final appointment into the International Franchise Group based out of Hong Kong. Following this in 1999 he became the Vice President of Consumer Asia Pacific for Gateway Computers Ltd. In 2002 he joined the Targus Group International as President Asia Pacific and then in 2005 became the Global COO.
Mr Price was then appointed in 2005 as the Managing Director of The Body Shop Asia Pacific region for 5 years, covering 16 countries and was also on the companies’ group executive committee.
Since 2010 Mr Price has been working in private equity with TPG Capital as their senior advisor for retail and consumer for the Asia Pacific region. Based out of Singapore, he has worked with numerous portfolio companies across Asia and served on boards in India, Japan, Myanmar, Singapore and Thailand.
Finally, Mr Price is also the founder and CEO of Jolsadoma and Laguna Consulting companies, providing strategic advice to the founders on retail best practices and transformational initiatives. He has worked with and invested in a number of startups including Redmart, Singapore’s No 1 On line grocery ecommerce site, Pomelo a vertically integrated ecommerce fashion brand based in Thailand, Pixibo a leading edge size and fit platform and Mercaux a digital in store sales platform.
Koji Yanagisawa
Advisor
Koji is the executive vice president and Chief Financial Officer at ZOZO Inc. (TSE: 3092), the operator of Zozotown, which is Japan’s largest and most innovative fashion e-commerce platform. He joined ZOZO Inc. in its early years and leads the key strategic agenda and business management of the entire group.
Koji is an active advisor at Lyra Ventures, where he provides valuable insight and advice across all aspects of our investments from his years of experience at the heart of Japan’s digital fashion business. In parallel, he also serves as an external director at COLOPL, a leading mobile game services company in Japan (TSE:3668), since 2015.
Prior to ZOZO Inc., Koji held a number of senior managerial positions within finance and management consulting industries.
Koji holds a BA in Economics from Keio University in Japan. He is fluent in Japanese and English.
Minoru Fukuda
Advisor
Minoru leads the Consumer Goods & Retail Practice of Roland Berger in Japan. He focuses on the lifestyle industry, including apparel, cosmetics, luxury, retail, food & beverage and much more. He has also supported various private equity funds in conducting business due diligence and value-up strategy in the lifestyle industry and is also the strategic advisor of a well-known fashion tech start up in Japan.
Minoru is the author of the well-known industry title, “The Future of Apparel in 2030.”
Ori Lavie
Advisor
Ori is the SVP of Sales for Dynamic Yield, a pioneer in personalization and AI technologies. Ori joined Dynamic Yield at the very beginning to lead the sales team and took it all the way from its first sale to its 2019 acquisition by McDonalds and beyond.
Before joining Dynamic Yield, Ori held numerous senior management roles in leading mobile and Internet companies. Most recently, Ori was VP of Sales at Comigo, and prior to that he was VP of Mobile Strategy at Conduit. Ori holds a BA in Computer Science from the Interdisciplinary Center, Israel.
Carol Hilsum
Advisor
Carol has spent over 15 years in the fashion-tech sector in senior roles creating consumer products and innovative growth strategies for companies like FARFETCH, NET-A-PORTER and Topshop. She also works in the fashion-tech startup ecosystem and as an advisor and mentor. Currently, she is the Senior Director of Product Innovation at FARFETCH. Her role includes managing open innovation and new business development strategies for the group.
Yuki Kanayama
Advisor
Yuki Kanayama is the founder of VASILY, the company behind Apple and Google’s award-winning fashion application, IQON. In October 2017, the company was acquired by ZOZO Inc, the owner of ZOZOTOWN, the largest fashion online shopping website in Japan.
After the acquisition, Yuki became the Chief Innovation Officer (CINO) of ZOZO Technologies, Inc and is now in charge of operations and new business development for “ZOZO Research”. He is also the author of the book “いちばんやさしいグロースハックの教本” (The Simplest Guide to Hack Growth).
Ciara Yeo
Advisor
Ciara has built a career around entrepreneurship, due diligence, investment execution, and portfolio support. She’s the co-founder of a vertically-integrated, digitally-native jewellery brand. Prior to this, she worked at White & Case in the Mergers & Acquisitions Group and Morgan Stanley in the Investment Banking Group executing M&A and capital markets transactions across South East Asia.
Ciara graduated with first class honours from the University of Sydney with a Bachelor of Commerce (Accounting and Finance) and Bachelor of Laws. Ciara is Australian but now calls Singapore home.
Dmitry Levit
Advisor
Dmitry has deep interest in the digital transformation of emerging markets, having witnessed the emergence of the digital economy in Russia. Based in Southeast Asia since 2005, he has worked for Yahoo! and IDG Ventures, a global VC. Dmitry is Partner at Cento Ventures which he founded in 2010, and is regarded as one of the Southeast Asia’s most established technology investors.
He formerly served as an advisor to several investment groups and corporations pursuing technology and media opportunities across developing Asia, with Media Development Authority of Singapore, Singtel, ru-Net, IDG Ventures Vietnam, SUP Media, Livejournal.com, Chinese Founders Fund, VIVA Media and Nusantara Ventures among his clients.
Born and raised in St. Petersburg, Russia, Dmitry graduated from St. Petersburg University School of Management, holds an MBA from INSEAD and has lived in Singapore, Indonesia, Finland, France, Czech Republic, Germany, Russia, and the UK.
Marisa Ito
Principal
Marisa joined Lyra Ventures after working as a management consultant at Bain & Company in Tokyo. Whilst at Bain, she focused on commercial due diligences, advising private equity clients on potential investments across CPG and various other sectors. In addition, she spent time with luxury fashion platform Farfetch in London, where she worked on strategic initiatives and supported teams on mid-term strategy development.