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Top 50 Food and Beverage Angel Investors in Japan in December 2024

Last updated: Dec 2024 A list of 50 angel investors that invest in Food and beverage startups based in Japan. We rank investors based on the number of investments they made in Food and beverage companies from Japan. We update this investor list every month.

Top 50 Food and Beverage Angel Investors in Japan in December 2024

Investor	Food and Beverage Japan investments
Yu Akasaka	6
Ryosuke Matsumoto	4
Yusuke Sato	4
Nobuhiro Ariyasu	4
Hidetoshi Takano	3
Naruhisa Nakagawa	3
Jun Nishikawa	3
Komura Fujio	2
Kazuma Ieiri	2
Dai Tamesue	2
Hiroaki Kitano	2
Chikako Morimoto	2
Kotaro Chiba	2
Kotaro Chiba	2
Yusuke Tanaka	2
Goshi Yamaguchi	2
Hiroaki Watatani	1
Toru Shimada	1
Yuto Nagatomo	1
Yoshiki Ishikawa	1
Soichiro Kawai	1
Kazuhiro Ishikura	1
Noguchi Keito	1
Mamoru Taniya	1
Koji Yamada	1
Takashi Mitachi	1
Takashi Nagao	1
Yusuke Umeda	1
Hayama Takashi	1
Chiba Hisayoshi	1
Yosuke Iwai	1
Nobuyuki Nakagawa	1
Mr Maru	1
Aso Kaname	1
Hideto Fujino	1
Kino Nobukuni	1
Shunsuke Ikegami	1
Seio Nagami	1
Nishio Kentaro	1
Fumiaki Koizumi	1
Sota Horiuchi	1
Hirofumi Miki	1
Masayuki SHOBAYASHI	1
Shunsuke Sasaki	1
Akiyuki Minami	1
Shintaro Yamada	1
Yusuke Inagaki	1
Tomohito Ebine	1
Narita Shuzo	1
Naoki Yamada	1

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Investor list

During Hosei University student, and intern at Hakuhodo C & D. After joining the Image-net, I do media monetization of EC site as a media planner. Then, new business, engaged in Alliance. Launched a crowdsourcing site "MILLION DESIGNS" of design in the individual, sold to Ransazu Corporation. Established the Eureka Co., Ltd., wasappointed Representative Director CEO.

Investment focus

Food and Beverage, Content, Internet
Seed, Angel, Funding Round
Japan, Australia, Hong Kong

Portfolio highlights

Now Do — Now Do provides online growth revolution platform.
RE — RE specializes in smartphone application design and development.
Vitalogue Health — Vitalogue Health offers Canvas, a home-based hormone testing service for women.

Ryosuke Matsumoto is the Founder / CEO at Kankak. Ryosuke Matsumoto attended Chuo University.

Investment focus

Art, Reservations, Software
Seed, Angel, Series A
Japan

Portfolio highlights

6curry — 6curry is a brand that creates a new community around “curry”, one of the world's best Japanese foods. The concept is to mix many people and ideas like curry made by mixing various ingredients and spices. Original menu development, weekly events are held in the central kitchen, open only to members. We design and produce communication bornfrom food, such as event catering for over 500 people and communication proposals within the company.
TRiCERA — TRiCERA is a contemporary art global platform management company.
Vivid Garden — vivid garden is an Agriculture company.

Yusuke Sato is the Co-Representative and Co-Founder of Pulit.

Investment focus

Internet, Content, Food and Beverage
Seed, Funding Round, Angel
Japan, Indonesia, United States

Portfolio highlights

Kaymak — Kaymak is a recruitment platform that focuses on creating a recruitment website, planning a recruitment strategy, and managing candidates.
Paytner — yup is providing services to support freelance people's funding.The freelance population in Japan has been shown to continue to increase in many Chosa. While working styles are diversified, they are not able to respond to the development of the working environment, and they will develop their business to change the situation where problemssuch as funding, credit, sexual harassment, and power harassment are accumulated.
Meetscare — Meetscare provides correct information and supports the self-awareness of all people involved in care. The company provides a wealth of information to ensure optimal care and create a mechanism for the realization. Users can make a telephone consultation and web diagnosis and search for free information using the system.Meetscare was founded on2016 and is headquartered in Arakawa, Tokyo.

Nobuhiro Ariyasu is the CEO at Coach United.

Investment focus

Finance, Internet, Content
Seed, Angel, Funding Round
Japan, Singapore

Portfolio highlights

PeopleX — PeopleX encourages and assists employees in their professional development.
PICK — PICK is a startup that provides a digital transformation platform for the real estate and construction industries.
Collectest — Collectest specializes in integrating AI into trading card appraisal procedures that show current market pricing and verify authenticity.

Joined Intelligence in 1999. Established Key Players Inc. in 2005. Consultation with more than 3,000 managers and career counseling for more than 10,000 individuals. In addition, we have invested in more than 55 outside directors, advisors and angels in Silicon Valley and Bangladesh in Japan. Over 100 lectures on careers, entrepreneurship andstartups.

Investment focus

Internet, Information Technology, Human Resources
Seed, Angel, Funding Round
Japan, United States

Portfolio highlights

Kaymak — Kaymak is a recruitment platform that focuses on creating a recruitment website, planning a recruitment strategy, and managing candidates.
D-Chain — D-Chain offers services related to IT development and production in the Web3 and Web2 fields.
Rayout — Rayout is a business consulting company that provides creative content development, recruitment videos, and web production services.

Naruhisa Nakagawa is a Founder & Chief Investment Officer at Caygan Capital.

Investment focus

Manufacturing, Beauty, Environmental Consulting
Seed, Series A
Japan, United States, United Kingdom

Portfolio highlights

Zeigo — Zeigo by Schneider Electric provides sustainability software for efficient carbon reduction and supply chain decarbonization, aiming for a carbon-free future.
Ecolectro — Ecolectro is solving the biggest challenges in making Green Hydrogen. Our alkaline ion-exchange membranes and polymers make clean fuel and decarbonize industry.
Sniffer Robotics — Comprehensive methane emissions detection and quantification, advanced imagery and analytics; Sniffer Robotics provides advanced solutions that benefit the environment.

Jun Nishikawa - Co-founder, Executive Vice President, COO @ Eureka

Investment focus

Food and Beverage, Media and Entertainment, Mobile
Seed, Series A, Angel
Japan, United States

Portfolio highlights

FamiOne — FamiOne is creating a society that will support the future of couples who want to receive children.
Misaky Tokyo — Marine plant-based, handmade Japanese sweets. These crystal treats are individually handcrafted, the perfect gift idea! Vegan, gluten-free, and additive-free confectionery, with stunning flavors such as Yuzu, Matcha, and Rose. Supporting artisans in their craft. Japanese luxury sweets with a surprise inside.
Reiwa Travel — Reiwa Trave is a digital travel agency intended that optimizes overseas travel. The company's platform uses online travel booking tools that provide digitalized contracts along with trip management, thereby enabling its customers' vacation and leisure experiences.

Komura Fujio

Investment focus

Content, Ethereum, Marketing
Seed, Angel
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Ginkan — GINKAN is the managing company of SynchroLife, the world's first restaurant recommendation platform where users and can earn cryptocurrency token rewards for dining out and posting restaurant reviews. GINKAN was selected for Plug and Play Japan Batch 1 in the fintech category and we won for best domestic fintech company and won the audienceaward at the Plug and Play Japan Batch 1 EXPO (Demo Day) in September 2018.GINKAN was also selected for Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group’s MUFG Digital Accelerator’s Batch 4 and won the Grand Prix, Audience Award, and AWS Award in a triple win on their demo day on July 26, 2019.

Born in 1978 and raised in Fukuoka prefecture, Kazuma founded paperboy&co. inc. (currently GMO Pepabo) and went on to become the youngest CEO ever (at the time) to take a company public in Japan by taking paperboy&co. public on the JASDAQ Japanese stock exchange. After leaving paperboy&co, he continued his startup trail by foundingBASE, CAMPFIRE, and XIMERA. Kazuma also dabbled in the food services industry via the founding of On The Corner (a cafe) and is active in the startup investment scene. He also started the Liverty-house project which attempts to create shared housing for young people in need.

Investment focus

Content, Fashion, Recruiting
Seed, Angel, Funding Round
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Taliki — Taliki is a Coworking Space Operates Social Entrepreneurs Development Support for Intrepreneur Development.
ONE NOVA — One Nova (ワンノバ) is a lifestyle brand and online platform that offers a range of innerwear products, such as men's boxers.
Vivid Garden — vivid garden is an Agriculture company.

Dai Tamesue is the Chief Marketing Officer of Miekuru.

Investment focus

Apps, Sports, Health Care
Angel, Seed, Pre-Seed
Japan

Portfolio highlights

MIL — MIL is a marketing company it can be used for a wide range of video marketing such as video commerce , O2O measures , recruitment videos , and landing videos.
Vivid Garden — vivid garden is an Agriculture company.
SAMURAI Security —

Hiroaki Kitano is the SVP at Softbank Mobile. He attended Waseda University.

Investment focus

Health Care, Information Technology, Fitness
Seed, Angel, Debt Financing
Japan, United States

Portfolio highlights

GPx — GPx is a biotech company that revolutionizes remote chronic disease management with bloodless blood tests. It is dedicated to transforming the standard of care of cardiorenal diseases and enabling patients to better understand their condition, much like the continuous glucose monitor has transformed diabetes care.The company was founded in 2020and is based in Boston, Massachusetts.
Epistra — Epistra accelerates research and development in life sciences.
Activaid — Activaid owns and operates a social data platform for patients with inflammatory bowel disease. It allows patients to support and exchange information within the patient community with the same disease; provide information necessary for new drug development and matching to clinical trials that suits them; and improve medical treatment. YasuakiHasebe founded Activaid in 2018. It has its headquarters in Tokyo in Japan.

Chikako Morimoto - External Counsel @ Traimmu

Investment focus

Human Resources, Employment, Information Technology
Seed, Funding Round
Japan

Portfolio highlights

DOFA — Dofa aims to develop services that enrich the way of life and work of human resources that are active mainly in sales.
Best Beer Japan — Best Beer Japan provides a barrel tracking software for craft beer and barrel sharing. The company was founded in 2018.
Vitalogue Health — Vitalogue Health offers Canvas, a home-based hormone testing service for women.

Kotaro Chiba is the founder of ChibaDojo Fund. Kotaro Chiba attended Keio University.

Investment focus

Internet, Drones, Software
Seed, Funding Round, Series A
Japan, United States

Portfolio highlights

MI-6 — MI-6 is a research, development, consulting, and project management for material development using IT. We will promote materials informatics in the field of material development with our technological capabilities and a wealth of project knowledge that challenge the world's most advanced technologies .
ELESTYLE — ELESTYLE are promoting mobile payments and providing high value-added services for users to realize a cashless society.
Luup — Luup is an Internet Company.

Kotaro Chiba is the founder of ChibaDojo Fund. Kotaro Chiba attended Keio University.

Investment focus

Travel, Internet, Software
Seed, Funding Round, Series A
Japan, United States

Portfolio highlights

MI-6 — MI-6 is a research, development, consulting, and project management for material development using IT. We will promote materials informatics in the field of material development with our technological capabilities and a wealth of project knowledge that challenge the world's most advanced technologies .
ELESTYLE — ELESTYLE are promoting mobile payments and providing high value-added services for users to realize a cashless society.
Luup — Luup is an Internet Company.

"Shin"ichiro joined Yahoo Japan in April 2013. From July 2013, he joined YJ Capital. He has served as COO of YJ Capital since January 2015. Prior to Yahoo! Japan, Shin was General Director of Dream Incubator Vietnam from 2007 to 2012, managing US$50 million private equity funds in Vietnam. He was formerly a Project Manager at DreamIncubator Japan. He started his career at Future Architect as a system engineer.Shin received his bachelor's degree in Policy Management from Keio University.

Investment focus

Tourism, Consulting, E-Commerce
Seed
Japan

Portfolio highlights

TakeMe Co., Ltd. — TakeMe aims to provide an “One-stop Inbound destination service” by enabling tourist to easily find, communicate with, and pay with smartphones via QR code at In-Travel destinations. TakeMe, is the country’s largest inbound service platform in Japan, which lets tourists find, communicate with, and pay with QR code at our affiliated shops,restaurants and tourist attractions. Since our launch in 2015 as JapanFoodie, we have expanded our merchant base to tens of thousands beyond food and restaurants, to include travel, lodging, shopping and events, providing every tourist with the best experience as your best local guide and friend.

Goshi Yamaguchi

Investment focus

Food and Beverage, Digital Media, Apps
Seed, Pre-Seed, Corporate Round
Japan

Portfolio highlights

ReadHub — ReadHub is a Information technology , Planning, development and management of Internet media and applications company.
Pan For You — Pan For You is a Food & Beverage Company. We deliver delicious bread from all over the world with our unique freezing technology and propose a lifestyle where you can enjoy freshly baked bread anytime.
ZAZA — ZAZA is focus to make the world where people can respect each other even thought they have a different culture and belief.

Hiroaki Watatani is the president of ASAKASHINKAN GROUP.

Investment focus

Content, Software, Logistics
Seed
Japan

Portfolio highlights

TunaGate — TunaGate is a circle community site that boasts the largest number of registrations in Japan.
Best Beer Japan — Best Beer Japan provides a barrel tracking software for craft beer and barrel sharing. The company was founded in 2018.

Toru Shimada is a Senior Executive Officer and Director of Rakuten. Mr. Shimada is a Director of Rakuten Baseball, Inc., and Head of Asia Regional Headquarters Office of the Company.Mr. Shimada joined Rakuten in 2004. Prior to joining Rakuten, Mr. Shimada was founder and Director of INTELLIGENCE, LTD from 1989 to 2004. Prior to INTELLIGENCE, LTD.Mr. Shimada worked at RECRUIT CO., LTD. from 1987 to 1989.

Investment focus

Internet, Task Management, Marketing
Seed, Angel, Funding Round
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Ixyas — Ixyas offers internet service planning, operation, marketing support, and sales services.
Neith — Neith is a apparel manufacturer, seller and a whoelseller of water absorbing bralette, lingerie and shorts for women.
Now Do — Now Do provides online growth revolution platform.

Yuto Nagatomo - President, CEO, and Founder @ Cuore Co., Ltd.

Investment focus

SNS, Video, Beauty
Funding Round, Seed, Angel
Japan

Portfolio highlights

MIL — MIL is a marketing company it can be used for a wide range of video marketing such as video commerce , O2O measures , recruitment videos , and landing videos.
Now Do — Now Do provides online growth revolution platform.
SAURUS JAPAN —

Preventive medicine researcher, doctor (medicine). While specializing in behavioral science and data science, he has also worked as a director at several operating companies, in charge of founding and managing. In January 2019, he became an outside director of Sansan Corporation. In addition to knowledge in the field of data analysis andutilization, make recommendations based on the perspective of management.

Investment focus

Marketing, Health Care, Video Editing
Seed
Japan

Portfolio highlights

MIL — MIL is a marketing company it can be used for a wide range of video marketing such as video commerce , O2O measures , recruitment videos , and landing videos.
MiL Inc — Emerging products for healthcare food brands Producing food retailing and wholesale recipe development Restaurant management Catering media operation.

Soichiro Kawai - CEO @ ReBoost

Investment focus

Media and Entertainment, Information Technology, Internet
Seed, Funding Round, Angel
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Villio — Villio provides talent experience SaaS which helps companies with human resource development and recruitment of talented engineers.
HarvestX — HarvestX manufactures fully automatic robots which contributes to the shortage of agricultural human resources and stable food production
SPeak Corporation — SPeak Corporation operates JPort Match that is involved in direct recruiting service. It is a global career platform for budding new talents.

Kazuhiro Ishikura served as the head of the Akatsuki Business Management Department in 2013 and as a corporate auditor of Akatsuki in 2014, contributing to the company's listing on the TSE Mothers and TSE 1st sections. Appointed 3minute CFO in 2015, engaged in business start-up and organizational design, and succeeded in large-scale M & Adeal with Glee. After leaving the company, he became a WARC director in November 2018. Certified public accountant.

Investment focus

Beauty, Content, Fashion
Seed, Angel, Funding Round
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Neith — Neith is a apparel manufacturer, seller and a whoelseller of water absorbing bralette, lingerie and shorts for women.
WARC Japan — WARC provides hands-on support for business management departments as well as mergers and acquisition advisory services.
Vitalogue Health — Vitalogue Health offers Canvas, a home-based hormone testing service for women.

Noguchi Keito - Founder @ Vapes

Investment focus

Media and Entertainment, Marketing, Financial Services
Seed, Angel
Japan, United States

Portfolio highlights

DOFA — Dofa aims to develop services that enrich the way of life and work of human resources that are active mainly in sales.
Alliance Cloud — Alliance Cloud primarily engages in the Sales Tech and BtoB Sales Outsourcing Business.
Cloud Franchise — Cloud Franchise is a cloud kitchen model that aims to maximize the kitchen occupancy rate of restaurants.

After graduating from the Faculty of Law at the University of Tokyo, he joined Solomon Brothers, where he became the youngest managing director in Asia, where he was in charge of Asian investment. After that, he created one of the largest independent Asuka assets. He also launched Japan's first independent online life insurance company,LifeNet Life Insurance, and inspired Japan's first International.

Investment focus

Apps, Content, FinTech
Seed, Series A, Funding Round
Japan, Singapore, Spain

Portfolio highlights

Revorf — Revorf analyzes data and develops AI-related to infectious diseases and healthcare.
abillion — Find tips for plant-based food & products near you. Join the community to share reviews of restaurants & brands. Raise funds & drive sustainability!
RIMM Sustainability — RIMM Sustainability provides a SaaS platform that enables companies of all sizes to optimise their sustainability management effort. It builds tools for sustainability management, reporting and optimisation.

Participated in the management of a student venture company while attending Keio University's Faculty of Policy Management. After graduation, he worked at Accenture Co., Ltd. for consulting services for companies in different industries such as media, apparel, finance and entertainment. In 2012, founded boundary spanner Co., Ltd. He alsoserved as a project manager for JAPAN CON-TECH FUND and a director of the Japan Home Party Association.

Investment focus

Software, Logistics, Food Delivery
Seed
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Best Beer Japan — Best Beer Japan provides a barrel tracking software for craft beer and barrel sharing. The company was founded in 2018.

Takashi Mitachi joined BCG in 1993 and is the head of BCG’s Japan operations. He leads the Strategy practice in Japan and is also a core member of the Financial Institutions, Marketing and Sales, and Organization practice areas.Takashi has led projects for Japanese and multinational clients in a wide range of financial and consumer industries.He has also written a book, The BCG Way – the Art of Strategic Insight, which focuses on how to develop capabilities to generate strategic insight.Before joining BCG, Takashi worked for 14 years at Japan Airlines, where his positions included manager of the corporate planning department at the head office in Tokyo. He holds an MBA with high distinction (Baker Scholar) from Harvard Business School and a BA in American literature from the University of Kyoto.

Investment focus

SNS, Brewing, Employment
Seed, Series A
Japan

Portfolio highlights

POL — Make academia open & cool.
Wakaze — Wakaze is a Japanese sake brewing startup.

Takashi Nagao

Investment focus

SNS, Video, Brewing
Seed, Pre-Seed, Series A
Japan

Portfolio highlights

FromTo — FromTo offers construction services.
Wakaze — Wakaze is a Japanese sake brewing startup.
FLATBOYS — FLATBOYS specializes in planning, development and operation of internet business.

Yusuke Umeda is the Chief Executive Officer of Monochrome Co., Ltd.

Investment focus

Sports, Communities, Food Processing
Seed, Pre-Seed
Japan

Portfolio highlights

6curry — 6curry is a brand that creates a new community around “curry”, one of the world's best Japanese foods. The concept is to mix many people and ideas like curry made by mixing various ingredients and spices. Original menu development, weekly events are held in the central kitchen, open only to members. We design and produce communication bornfrom food, such as event catering for over 500 people and communication proposals within the company.
Break Sports — We are on a mission to empower anyone to become an athlete. We are doing this by building and online destination for players to discover and connect with competitive and recreational sport activities through one platform.

Hayama Takashi - Outside Director @ Eco Style

Investment focus

SNS, Beauty, Medical
Seed
Japan

Portfolio highlights

MedPeer — MedPeer operates as a community site for doctors. MedPeer is a recruitment agency collective registration service.MedPeer operation of "MedPeer," a collective intelligence service/ community website for physicians.

Chiba Hisayoshi is the Director and COO at Noin.

Investment focus

Food and Beverage
Seed
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Pan For You — Pan For You is a Food & Beverage Company. We deliver delicious bread from all over the world with our unique freezing technology and propose a lifestyle where you can enjoy freshly baked bread anytime.

Yosuke Iwai is Founder & CEO at repica.

Investment focus

Cooking
Angel
Japan

Portfolio highlights

VCook — VCook is a website for posting recipes that offer vegan food. They give users the ability to search for and save vegan recipes on VCook. They post and share vegan recipes with everyone.

Nobuyuki Nakagawa - President and CEO @ Mynavi

Investment focus

Apps, Mobile, Mobile Apps
Angel
Japan

Portfolio highlights

SakeWiz — SakeWiz is an App to enjoy, buy and record sake located in Tokyo

Mr. Maru

Investment focus

Organic, Residential, Waste Management
Seed
Japan

Portfolio highlights

AlgaleX — AlgaleX is a firm that utilizes discarded food waste to create ingredients such as plant-based proteins.

Aso Kaname

Investment focus

Organic, Residential, Waste Management
Seed
Japan

Portfolio highlights

AlgaleX — AlgaleX is a firm that utilizes discarded food waste to create ingredients such as plant-based proteins.

Hideto Fujino - President, Cheif Investment Officer @ Rheos

Investment focus

Reservations, Travel, Real Estate
Funding Round, Seed, Series A
Japan, United States

Portfolio highlights

HOMMA — Inspired Modern Living. Homes to elevate healthy urban lifestyles. Design. Build. Technology.
Address Japan — ADDress is a provider of co-living spaces in both urban and rural areas, enabling people to live in a range of luxurious residences at fixed prices.
Unito — Unito offers people a friction-free lifestyle by pursuing optimization of living.

Kino Nobukuni

Investment focus

Food and Beverage
Seed
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Pan For You — Pan For You is a Food & Beverage Company. We deliver delicious bread from all over the world with our unique freezing technology and propose a lifestyle where you can enjoy freshly baked bread anytime.

Shunsuke Ikegami is an angel investor.

Investment focus

Social, Cooking, Big Data
Seed, Funding Round
Japan

Portfolio highlights

CoCooking — CoCooking uses food and cooking to create ample opportunity for dialogue and thought, fostering creativity, diversity, and well-being of individuals and communities.
Datasection — Datasection is a social big data company that provides various big data analysis tools for its clients. It specializes in marketing research, data provision and processing, image analysis, overseas SNS, and data utilization and optimization. Datasection was founded in 2000.

Seio Nagami

Investment focus

Task Management, SaaS, Information Technology
Seed, Series A, Angel
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Enechain — enechain provides liquidity in Japan’s energy market by brokering OTC transactions of energy.
Stock — Stock develops products that relieve the stress of sharing information from teams around the world.
OVERFLOW — OVERFLOW provides consulting and recruitment services.

Nishio Kentaro is the Founder, Chief Executive Officer & President at Game8.

Investment focus

Information Technology, Internet, Software
Seed
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Morght — Morght is an information technology service company.
YOUTRUST — YOUTRUST is a startup to operate YOUTRUST a referral recruitment platform for side-job change.
Cloud Franchise — Cloud Franchise is a cloud kitchen model that aims to maximize the kitchen occupancy rate of restaurants.

Fumiaki Koizumi - Executive Director @ Mercari

Investment focus

Internet, E-Commerce, Content
Seed, Funding Round, Series A
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Luup — Luup is an Internet Company.
Aoyama Arts — Aoyama Arts is an architecture and consulting company that develops design offices and supports land search and financing plans.
FABRIC TOKYO — FABRIC TOKYO is a Japanese startup provides a direct-to-consumer custom-made apparel brand. (former-company name Lifestyle Design Co., Ltd.). It enables customers to save their sizes, idea fabrics, and favorite designs, allowing them to make their original clothing later.FABRIC TOKYO was founded in 2012 by Yuichiro Mori and is based in Tokyo,Japan.

Sota Horiuchi (Tokyo) joined KKR in 2008. He has been involved with the investments in Intelligence, Panasonic Healthcare and Pioneer DJ. Prior to joining KKR, he was an associate at McKinsey & Company, based in Germany and Japan. He was involved in supporting a number of companies in developing their business strategy, including new marketentry and management improvement projects. He holds a B.A. with High Distinction, Phi Beta Kappa, in Political Science from the University of Michigan and a B.A. in Law from the University of Tokyo.

Investment focus

Content, Food and Beverage
Seed
Japan

Portfolio highlights

10x — 10x provides One-stop service from meal planning to grocery shopping.

After JTB Co., Ltd. and CYBIRD Co., Ltd. as an initial member of Glee Co., Ltd. is responsible for business development. Currently, he is mainly engaged in venture support in the Internet area, investing in venture and venture capital, and served as management advisor for dozens of companies. Hands-on business development, growth strategydevelopment, financing advice, HR organization design support, partner referral and Recruit Support. He is also engaged in business support for ventures in the healthcare and university venture fields. He served as Digital Health Meetup Advisor, NEDOTCP Mentor and Future 2016 Mentor.

Investment focus

Content, Marketing, Internet
Seed, Angel, Pre-Seed
Japan

Portfolio highlights

aceRNA Technologies — AceRNA contributes to regenerative medicine and drug discovery through the discovery of novel miRNA functions. It began operation in April 2018, with its headquarters in Kyoto in Japan.
Epicbase — Epicbase is an AI-based automatic voice transcription service based on voice recognition technology.
Go Visions — Go Visions engages in the edutainment tech for children and human resources services.

Masayuki SHOBAYASHI

Investment focus

Fitness, Software, Mobile Apps
Seed
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Nupp1 — Nupp1 is a mobile application to find a fitness center.
Pan For You — Pan For You is a Food & Beverage Company. We deliver delicious bread from all over the world with our unique freezing technology and propose a lifestyle where you can enjoy freshly baked bread anytime.

Shunsuke Sasaki - Executive officer @ Jiraffe

Investment focus

Social Media, Content, SNS
Seed, Angel, Pre-Seed
Japan, Myanmar

Portfolio highlights

Hackazouk — Hackazouk is an HR Tech company that operates Official-Alumni.com, an alumni relationship management system in Japan and the Philippines to help companies stay connected with their alumni.
bond Japan — Bond Co., Ltd. is a video learning platform specializing in Japanese language studies.
Linklusion — Linklusion is a system development and management support for microfinance institutions in developing countries

After graduating from Keio University in April 1999, it joined the Sumitomo Bank (now Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation). After experiencing such as transportation and food service industry analyst business, joined Advantage Partners, a pioneer in corporate acquisition fund in January 2004. Of 5 in charge of the investment projects, managementimprovement activities and as an officer of the investee companies, contributing to the realization of a good investment return. In 2009, it completed the Oxford University School of Management (MBA). I met with local other, who led the Japanese corporation (NPO) the establishment of the blast beat youth social entrepreneurship program with music, such as participating in NPO corporation handsome business cards Oxford of synchronization has been established, individual actively participate in activities to support the independence and autonomy. He left the Advantage Partners in June 2011 in the wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake, Ltd. was established well self (now Corporation Kokonara) himself as a representative.

Investment focus

Software, Freelance, Logistics
Seed
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Sollective — Sollective is an invite-only freelancer network where companies can directly hire talent inside and outside of Japan. Sollective connects freelancers and companies that are ready to work together to maximize each's potential and lead the business to success.
Best Beer Japan — Best Beer Japan provides a barrel tracking software for craft beer and barrel sharing. The company was founded in 2018.

During his years at Waseda University, Shintaro worked at Japan’s biggest e-commerce mall, Rakuten, Inc. On August 1st 2001, Shintaro established “Unoh Inc.” after graduating university. At Unoh he was responsible for designing and developing several web services, one of which was the online magazine subscription . Services provided by Unohinclude planning, development and management of the film enthusiast community site “Movie Life” (acquired by PIA Corporation) as well as “Sugu.CC” , “NeoAd” (both acquired by GMOAP) and the photo sharing site “Photozou” (acquired by Digital Garage).In 2009 Unoh entered into social gaming, creating multiple successful social games. Among these games, “Machitsuku!” has been its biggest hit with over 5 million users. On August 3rd 2010, Unoh joined Zynga and Shintaro became General Manager of Zynga Japan. He resigned on January 2012. After traveling around the world, He established the new company “Mercari, Inc.” on February 2013 and released the resale shopping app “Mercari” on July 2013 in Japan.He is a true Internet geek, spending a lot of time on the Internet and boasts around 180,000 followers on Twitter.

Investment focus

Internet, Finance, Information Technology
Seed, Angel, Pre-Seed
Japan, United States, Kenya

Portfolio highlights

Autify — AI software testing company aimed at solving the challenges associated with automation testing. We are passionate about making software testing faster and easier, empowering companies to release faster and keep their applications stable.
Peach Cars — Peach Cars building a solution for those looking to buy and sell vehicles whole information on vehicles and hassle-free transactions.
AnotherBall — AnotherBall is a blockchain startup that combines entertainment and blockchain.

Prior to establishing UZABASE, Yusuke Inagaki was the project manager of the Technology Integration Division at ABeam Consulting, where he actively developed and constructed the entire company's system strategies. Inagaki was also involved in the design and construction of large-scale databases for financial institutions. With his richexperience and knowledge in systems technology, Inagaki co-founded UZABASE with Yusuke Umeda and Ryosuke Niino in 2008, and assumed the role of Co-CEO for UZABASE and CEO for NewsPicks in 2017.

Investment focus

Marketing, Advertising, Cloud Computing
Seed
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Canly — Canly is a cloud based system to reduce management & operating costs in a retail store along with being in the media & advertising business.

Tomohito Ebine is non-executive Director at Owls Co., Ltd.

Investment focus

Home Services, Information Technology, Consulting
Seed, Angel, Series A
Japan, United States

Portfolio highlights

HOMMA — Inspired Modern Living. Homes to elevate healthy urban lifestyles. Design. Build. Technology.
Smartround — Smartround is a specialized finance management platform for startups and their investors. For start-ups, for entrepreneurs who are not familiar with finance, simply enter the necessary information according to the guide, prepare appropriate financing round, and prepare a function that can simulate and execute a capital increase. Support informationsharing and communication with shareholders even after the capital increase.
CAREER BIJIN — Career bijin is a total support company.

Narita Shuzo is a Executive Vice President/COO, CrowdWorks Inc.

Investment focus

Task Management, Media and Entertainment, Content
Seed, Pre-Seed, Angel
Japan

Portfolio highlights

MIL — MIL is a marketing company it can be used for a wide range of video marketing such as video commerce , O2O measures , recruitment videos , and landing videos.
Morght — Morght is an information technology service company.
MiL Inc — Emerging products for healthcare food brands Producing food retailing and wholesale recipe development Restaurant management Catering media operation.

Naoki Yamada

Investment focus

Information Technology, Software, Sports
Seed, Pre-Seed, Funding Round
Japan

Portfolio highlights

SPORNIA — SPORNIA is an editor of sports knowledge technology.We provide support for athletes using content and monetization using emerging media such as SNS and YouTube.
Best Beer Japan — Best Beer Japan provides a barrel tracking software for craft beer and barrel sharing. The company was founded in 2018.
THE APP BASE Inc — THE APP BASE Inc is a design firm that provides its clients with web and mobile services. Founded in 2012, the firm also operates co-working spaces.

Investors by industry

Artificial intelligence