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Darren Kimura

Entrepreneur, Investor, Operator

About 

The older I get, the more I forget, so I created this site to help me remember.

This is definitely going to be TL;DR for most so I recommend simply doing a Google search, follow me on social Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram or visit the Wikipedia page on me.  Otherwise, feel free to browse this not so regularly maintained site or visit my life in photos.

I have always been intrigued by business and specifically on taking a product, improving it, growing it, building bigger and bigger teams, the art of selling, marketing and generally scaling.

In my late teens

Myself and a group of friends brought the sport of Paintball to Hawaii.  To do so we purchased our paintball guns out of the back of magazine and figured out what was needed by trial, error and a lot of patience.   In our first outing, we had no paintball gear so I wore my father’s white construction helmet and a diving mask for face protection.  Not really knowing anything about anything, we shot at each other from positions well out of range, under foggy goggles and we ran out of paintballs and CO2 in minutes. Experiencing all this inefficiency led to my first business of procuring and providing gear, compressed air, paintballs and paintball guns to the growing sport. The idea was learned from the California gold rush – where the miners didn’t make the money, the tools providers did.  The business was great as it created a lot of extra money for Hawaiian plate lunches, spam musubis, gas and surfboards.  

Later, as I attended University, I worked in the Computer Science department as a Teaching Assistant and Lab Manager.  That led me to create an IT services company called Nalu Communications which was a early Hawaii ISP and Managed Services Provider.  I sold that business learning you could create a business with the intention of selling it (as opposed to just running it) which became a model for future businesses.

In my 20s

My next venture was an energy efficiency company which was initially called Energy Conservation Hawaii.  My father who was an electrical contractor saw that Hawaii was undergoing massive growth in tourism yet the energy systems were not matching that growth.  He understood that one day businesses would need to conserve energy and a company would be needed to provide that service.

Initially, it was a small idea to help any local business who would listen.  It began with cold calling and mailers.  Calling on family friends.  Going door to door and trying to get anyone to listen.  I funded the business with credit cards and our first few customers were small businesses like Doctors, Accountants, Architects, and Engineers.  We were fortunate to find a champion within the local utility which led to a partnership and gave a young, inexperienced business person credibility allowing us to move to building owners, companies with multiple locations, and bigger buildings like the Airports, the Universities and the public Schools.  With the highest energy rates in the entire US, Hawaii was ground zero for energy efficiency and our business helped define an industry.

Timing was excellent and the business grew rapidly to establish offices on all islands.  Word of mouth allowed for the business to expand to Portland, Oregon and Seattle Washington and to change the company name to Energy Industries Corporation.  More success gained further national attention as we were fortunate to become partnered with General Electric.  This allowed us to expand into Chicago, New York, Houston and California.  We expanded our services and eventually covered energy efficiency, energy generation, demand side management programs for utilities, and performance contracting.  Energy Industries became known as one of the the top Energy Services Companies (ESCOs) in the US and was eventually sold to VWI a holding company.

In my early 30s

I realized to go bigger, I needed to focus on developing a scalable approach around technology and I founded Solar Power Technology also known as SOPOGY.  Here, we invented a new kind of solar panel, one which used mirrors to focus light into a central receiver to create steam.  The journey with SOPOGY was amazing as it was at the very beginning of the solar revolution.  It’s important to understand this was a time before China had any solar manufacturing production and Photovoltaic panels which today are commoditized, were extremely expensive.  At SOPOGY I worked with an incredibly talented engineering team and had the opportunity to co-invent literally dozens of inventions (which should give you an idea of how early this was) and 13 of them became issued patents.  In addition we acquired over 65 different patents globally.  We developed projects in Hawaii, California, Spain, Portugal, Greece, UAE, Africa, Japan, Papua New Guinea, Singapore, Philippines, Thailand, India, Washington State, and Mexico.  SOPOGY’s project development division was acquired by MEMC and I was relocated to Belmont California to run global strategy from HQ and SOPOGY’s technology was acquired by Hitachi. 

Some time mid-30s and 40s

In building my previous companies I always thought the top of the hierarchy was to become an investor.  Venture Capitalists always seems to live a charmed life taking summers and winters off, enjoying second homes in luxurious places, dropping into various board meetings sharing their knowledge and moving to the next company.  So, I founded Enerdigm Ventures to invest in early clean energy innovations.  The name was a combination of Energy and Paradigm.  I quickly learned being a VC was not what I thought it would be.  After the Fukushima nuclear incident, the energy sector went on a long pause and we shifted our investment focus to IT investments including  Software Defined Networking, Cybersecurity, and Big Data.  Our limited partners were demanding and required a lot more attention than I expected and our CEOs were stubborn and never seemed to listen to my advice, always trying to reinvent the wheel.    

Around 2012, I became the first outside investor and led the creation of LiveAction, Inc., as we spun-out the technology from U.S. Department of Defense contractor Referentia Systems. There I served on the Board of Directors, initially as it’s operating Executive Chairman. In 2014 I led our Series A from Cisco and Sway Ventures and served as the company’s CEO and President. In 2016 Insight Venture Partners acquired LiveAction where I served as President, Chief Strategy Officer and Executive Chairman until Sept 2019 and on the Board of Directors until February 2020.  Over that time, I led the team which acquired and integrated Traverse from Kaseya, LivingObjects of Toulouse France and Savvius/Wild Packets from Walnut Creek California. 

Working for Insight Partners, I had the opportunity to serve as a subject matter expert to the Insight infrastructure investing team.  In this capacity, I worked on conducting due diligence on 24 IT companies including the acquisition of LogTrust which was later renamed to Devo.

Around the mid-40s

In the Series A of LiveAction, our first financial investor was a fund called Accelerate IT Ventures, later renamed to Sway Ventures.  Our relationship grew and blossomed over my time at LiveAction and at the end of my LiveAction tenure, the leadership at Sway asked me to consider helping them create a practice area that would be focused on Pre-Seed and Seed companies.  Together, we developed a structure where I could move my Enerdigm Ventures activities into Sway and I would join Sway as a Partner. 

I spend a lot of my time helping our portfolio companies and technology partners where I can.  Most of my focus is on go-to-market with sales, marketing, channels and technology alliances and I am still investing.  

In the News

Video Conferencing Tips and Best Practices

By: Lori Teranishi and Darren Kimura In this series of webinars, Spin Technology has been exploring the question, "What is the new normal?" with our 1.5 Million users. In many cases, we know it's a work from home/work from office hybrid model. In nearly all cases,...

Spin Technology Presents: Cyber Liability Insurance

By: Tyron Standing and Darren Kimura Cyber Liability has emerged as a major issue for organizations ranging from 5 employees to 500,000 employees. Listen in as experts in cybersecurity explain a new model for insurance against cyber breaches. Core areas covered in...

Return to Work: Prepare Your Office for Employees

By: Davit Asatryan, Cleo Valeroso and Darren Kimura In this webinar we examine how to prepare to open offices. Most industries will have a mix of in-office workers and a continuing cadre of home-based workers. https://youtu.be/izCVaSD49z8

COVID-19 – Work from Home

By: Davit Asatryan and Darren Kimura In this episode, Spin Technology explores how employers and G Suite administrators use SpinOne to help understand worker patterns as they work from home. This includes answering questions such as what time to employees begin work?...

Spin Technology Names Darren T. Kimura as Executive Chairman

Spin Technology, Inc., a leading provider of Ransomware protection solutions for Google G Suite and Microsoft Office 365 announced that its board of directors has appointed Darren T. Kimura as Executive Chairman. PALO ALTO, CALIF. (PRWEB) JANUARY 10, 2020 Spin...

5 Takeaways From The Cisco WikiLeaks Bombshell

By now you’ve likely heard about the Vault 7 release, in which WikiLeaks dumped thousands of files that it claims came from a top-secret CIA network. The cache included bombshell allegations that the CIA created exploits that could open back doors on many end user and...

Kimura Award Winners for IT and Clean Energy 2017

Hawaii Island Science Fair 2017. In the middle are the winners of the Kimura Award for Innovations in Computer Science (L) and Clean Energy (R). Congratulations to you both, you are an inspiration!!! Thanks also to mom and dad for presenting the awards

How One Silicon Valley Startup Overcame the Tech Talent Shortage

Originally posted on: https://www.indeed.com/lead/overcome-the-tech-talent-shortage Finding world-class engineering talent is a struggle for many companies in today’s competitive job market. It’s even harder when you are a Silicon Valley-based startup competing with...

Key to company success: Create an excellent culture

Defining Company Culture - originally created for LiveAction  Over the last 20 years, I’ve had the privilege to work with and/or invest in 34 start-up companies that have raised a combined total of over $3.2 billion in growth equity, employed 2,800+, and achieved over...

LiveAction completes a $36 million Series B financing

I am proudly announcing that LiveAction has completed its Series B financing, raising $36 million from Insight Venture Partners, Cisco Investments and Accelerate IT Ventures.  Here's the full press release: IT network visibility software platform focuses on global...

LiveAction announces LiveUX

LiveAction Announces LiveUX to Extend Visibility of Application Performance in the Cloud  New Product Enables Monitoring of Web-Based Applications from Anywhere SANTA CLARA, Calif., June 2, 2015 – LiveAction, an innovative company known for its patented, award-winning...

Help Happiness U!

If you could bring a little happiness into someone's life who needs it, wouldn't you do it? My friend, author and renown life coach Alice Inoue, has created "Happiness U" a community designed to provide people the tools to live life in a way that is authentic and true...

LiveAction secures Series A financing from Cisco and AITV

It gives me great pleasure to announce that LiveAction my enterprise network software company has closed its Series A financing.  You can preview the Company's press release. Visit the AITV page:     Cisco Investments team:  

2013 U.S.-JAPAN COUNCIL ANNUAL CONFERENCE

The 2013 USJC Annual Conference, held in Washington, DC from October 3 to 5, was a resounding success. With approximately 400 attendees, this 4th Annual Conference was our largest event yet. Themed “Risk, Reward and Innovation: Opportunities for the U.S. and Japan,”...

Hawaii’s Energy Excelerator

I was extremely fortunate to participate in the Hawaii Energy Excelerator. At a time where most investors are leaving clean energy, one group stands firm in its commitment to bringing clean energy solutions to the world. If you care about clean energy, you need to...

Intersolar 2013

Presenting at Intersolar North America 2013 Solar thermal power plants are designed to deliver dispatchable power through storage (molten salt) or hybrid operation, thus enabling a higher total share of intermittent renewable energies in a future energy mix. However,...

Better Business Bureau 2013

HONOLULU – Hawaii’s Better Business Bureau® (BBB), the leader in advancing marketplace trust, has announced the finalists of its 2013 BBB Torch Awards program. “The BBB Torch Awards program celebrates businesses and public charities that demonstrate and maintain solid...

Energy Excelerator

Darren Kimura @sopogy opening our last day of the Energy Excelerator "Welcome to the world of startup companies" pic.twitter.com/qdfDDkXb The Energy Excelerator The Energy Excelerator advances Hawaii’s clean energy industry by combining entrepreneurs, funding and...

Venture capitalists honor Sopogy founder, others

By Star-Advertiser staff  POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Jan 25, 2013 The Hawaii Venture Capital Association on Thursday presented its 2012 "Deal of the Year" award to Darren Kimura, the founder and CEO of a Honolulu-based company that pioneered the concept of...

Pacific Business News – 10 to watch in 2013

10 to Watch: Hawaii business leaders face risks and rewards in 2013 Pacific Business News Date: Friday, January 4, 2013, 2:48pm HST - Last Modified: Friday, January 4, 2013, 3:07pm HST The new year will bring huge risks — and potentially big rewards — for the...

Lexus Magazine

When Sopogy boss Darren Kimura advises you to “watch your hand on that pipe, it gets hot real quick,” he's not kidding. The pipe in question is being instantly and effectively heated by something 93 million miles away. Enough solar radiation hits Earth in an hour to...