Professional soccer player Keisuke Honda has created a new student fund, KSK Mafia, which will pair the world's best student entrepreneurs with selected student investors. Honda believes that "students are changing the world," as has been proven by numerous young businessmen such as Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk in the United States, and Masayoshi Son and Takafumi Horie in Japan.

KSK Mafia invests in the best students throughout Asia. The fund will provide pre-startup or early-stage startup students with 2.5 to 5 million yen in angel funding and the right to participate in the community. Students selected by KSK Mafia as investors will also be part of the investment team that will seek out the world's best student entrepreneurs, help them grow their businesses, and receive 10% of the return on their investment when the portfolio company exits.

While working for the prestigious Italian club AC Milan in 2016, Honda founded the KSK Angel Fund — an investment fund that manages his own assets with the goal of solving social issues — and began investing in startups.Two years later, in 2018, he and world-renowned actor Will Smith co-founded the VC "Dreamers Fund" and began investing in U.S. startups. To date, Honda has invested in more than 260 domestic and international startups with both funds combined, and several companies have already reached IPO, M&A, and unicorn status.

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Source: https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000001.000113692.html