DC Palter

DC Palter is a startup founder and venture investor, with twenty-five years experience leading tech companies. His articles on venture funding are followed by tens of thousands of startup founders.

Living in Japan for many years, he became the first non-native person certified by the Japan Society as a Japanese language instructor. He’s the author of Colloquial Kansai Japanese, a guidebook to the Osaka-Kyoto dialect published by Tuttle, and editor-in-chief of Japonica, a daily journal of Japanese culture.

DC is the first-ever winner of the Little Tokyo Fiction Contest for short stories in both Japanese and English. His first novel, To Kill a Unicorn, was a 2023 American Fiction Awards finalist for Best Mystery Novel and Best Debut Novel.

DC holds an MFA in creative writing along with degrees in engineering, marketing, and law. Together with his wife, a leading ikebana artist, he splits his time between Kobe, Japan and the Silicon Beach area of Los Angeles.