After graduating from the Faculty of Agriculture at Kyoto University, Shizuka Kako worked at a consulting firm before joining DeNA in 2010, where she was involved in new business launches and marketing. She then worked at Amazon Japan and Mercari, focusing on growth marketing. In 2021, she joined Delight Ventures and took charge of marketing and PR support for startups that were investment targets of Delight Ventures. With her background in science, she is mainly responsible for investing in deep tech and university startups. During her university days, she joined a plant physiology laboratory, where her research focused on the regulatory mechanism of expression of the photosynthetic enzyme phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase (PEPC) in C4 plants (maize) during DNA methylation/unmethylation. She is particularly interested in decarbonization, biotechnology, food and agriculture, healthcare, and the circular economy.