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Top 20 Local Startup Investors in Japan in September 2025

Last updated: Sep 2025 A list of 20 angel investors and VC (Venture Capital) funds that invest in Local startups based in Japan. We rank investors based on the number of investments they made in Local companies from Japan. We update this investor list every month.

Top 20 Local Startup Investors in Japan in September 2025

Investor	Local Japan investments
Global Brain Corporation	4
ANRI	3
Incubate Fund	3
Chiba Dojo	3
SBI Investment	2
Japan Finance Corporation	1
Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group	1
STRIVE	1
GMO VenturePartners	1
JAFCO	1
OPT Ventures	1
Recruit Strategic Partners	1
Energy & Environment Investment	1
NetAge	1
Takaya Shinozuka	1
Mizuho Capital	1
ORIX Ventures	1
Delight Ventures	1
Adways	1
Upsider Blue Dream Fund	1

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Investor list

Global Brain Corporation is a venture capital firm that invests in companies from seed or early to pre-IPO startups. Global Brain has invested in 300+ startups from seed/early to pre-IPO startups and achieved 25 IPOs and 61 M&As as a result of providing hands-on support services and resources to its portfolio startups. Global Brain hasmanaged a pure investment fund as well as multiple corporate venture capital funds partnered together with tier 1 public companies of telecom, real estate development, financial service, beverages, agriculture food, logistics, and electronic devices.

Investment focus

Information Technology, Software, Artificial Intelligence
Series A, Series B, Funding Round
Japan, United States, United Kingdom

Portfolio highlights

SAKANA Dream — Japanese fish and its cuisine are a treasure of Japan, On the other hand, the variety of fish consumed on a daily basis accounts for less than 1% of all fish living in Japanese waters. Although there are many underutilized fish that surpass the well-known fish, they are even discarded due to unstable catches and lack of name recognition. Aquaculture can provide a stable supply, however, it is not easy to keep fish in a small water cage and only a limited number of fish are delivered to the market. We, SAKANA Dream, select the most delicious fish from over 4,000 species in Japan, and make it possible to farm and produce them using the cutting edge technology. Our goal is to create the "world's most delicious fish" that no one has ever tasted before and deliver it to our customers.
Cierpa & Company — Cierpa & Company develops environmental, social, and governance management software. They offer services for the cloud, share information between departments, optimise workflows, and analyse and improve scores.
Counter Culture Company — Counter Culture Company is an online platform that offers K-pop dance classes ranging from beginner to professional levels.

ANRI is a Japanese venture capital firm that mainly invests in seed and early-stage startups.

Investment focus

Software, Information Technology, Health Care
Seed, Series A, Funding Round
Japan, United States, India

Portfolio highlights

Chorakuchoju — Chorakuchoju is a healthcare organization that tries to avoid isolation by implementing AI technologies and medical services.
Linea Innovations — Linea Innovations is an energy production company that develops commercial fusion reactors with advanced fuel technology.
Strand Therapeutics — Strand Therapeutics is developing the first platform for creating programmable mRNA drugs to deliver precise, multi-functional, potentially curative treatments.

Incubate Fund is an independent early-stage venture capital that specializes in providing capital to technology startups at the seed stage. The firm built a portfolio of over 300 companies in Asia, taking 12 companies to public and 20 companies to M&A exit since 2010.

Investment focus

Software, Information Technology, E-Commerce
Seed, Funding Round, Series A
Japan, United States, India

Portfolio highlights

Visual Bank — Visual Bank operates a stock photo business and provides an AI data platform. It aims to create a society in which the value of Japanese creations is maximized and optimized.
Nominal — Nominal empowers the next-generation economy.Nominal modernizes and automates accounting and financial management, providing robust reporting, multi-entity consolidation, workflow automation (including accruals and revenue), lease compliance (ASC 842/IFRS 16), period-end close collaboration, and much more.Nominal's generativesubledgers transform business logic into actions and insights using Generative AI - without the need for costly engineering or lengthy IT projects. Our shadow-ledger is implemented in days, not months, and seamlessly integrates with existing general ledgers and ERPs.
Rocket Link Technology — Rocket Link Technology is a product development company that specializes in designing LTP rockets for space travel.

Chiba Dojo is an entrepreneurial community that supports startup companies in various stages from seed to pre-IPO.

Investment focus

Information Technology, Content, Apps
Seed, Series A, Funding Round
Japan, Singapore, United States

Portfolio highlights

Utoniq — Utoniq service allows them to collect the works of the artists they support digitally in the form of trading cards. Trading cards will be collected as proof of support for the creators. It is a brand-new trading card service that is both enjoyable to collect and enjoyable to exchange. They provide a service lineup in order to continually increasefan engagement. They can make flexible proposals based on the needs of artists, creators, influencers, anime characters, and so on.
Manabie — Manabie is an Education Technology start-up company on a mission to provide a new style of online & offline merged learning around the world. We provide students with everything they need for efficient learning; high-quality learning materials, great learning environments, personal coaches and more! We believe that our new method of learning,integrating online and offline will dramatically innovate the way students learn.
Paradigm AI — Paradigm AI is an entertainment firm that produces songs and creates virtual human idols using generative AI.

SBI Investment supports the business development and growth of private venture companies through fund investment. It manages and manages venture capital funds under the management philosophy of becoming a leading company responsible for the creation and development of core industries in the 21st century as a "new industry creator".SBIInvestment has invested in a total of 986 companies in the past, of which 169 (17.1% of investment companies) have exited through IPO or M & A.

Investment focus

Information Technology, Software, Financial Services
Series B, Series A, Funding Round
Japan, South Korea, United States

Portfolio highlights

Prorata.AI — ProrataAI builds technology that enables generative AIs to properly attribute contributing content and share revenues on a per-use basis.
Innovacell — Innovacell is a biotechnology firm entirely focused on the area of tissue engineering and it operates one of Europe's largest and most modern production facilities for the proliferation of the body's own tissue cells. Its supervisory board is chaired by the experienced financial expert, Dr. Harald Pöttinger, a director of Alpine EquityManagement AG, based in Bregenz, Austria. Innovacell currently employs 20 staff as well as numerous outside experts.
ASTRO — Situs Belanja Kebutuhan Harian Online dengan Harga Terjangkau dan Kualitas Terbaik. Pesan Kebutuhan Harian di ASTRO Pasti Sampai dalam Hitungan Menit

Japan Finance provides a diversified portfolio of financial services to the small and medium enterprise sector.

Investment focus

Software, Information Technology, Artificial Intelligence
Debt Financing, Funding Round, Seed
Japan, Hong Kong

Portfolio highlights

bgrass — bgrass is a consultation support platform for women working in the IT industry.
COUNTERWORKS — Counter works is an Information technology company.
Dr.’s Prime — Doctor's Prime is a technology company that provides is a part-time job information service for optimizing the working style of doctors.

Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, is a Japanese bank holding / financial services company headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. MUFG manages the affairs of its subsidiaries within the group and the business of the group as a whole along with all relevant ancillary business.The MUFG Group turned its eye toward the expected operatingenvironment changes over the next decade, and launched the new medium-term business plan, which outlines the strategies that will be implemented over the first three years of this period. The new plan is designed to guide us as they strive to realize their corporate vision—“Be the world's most trusted financial group.” By accelerating initiatives that span across business entities, regions, and business groups, they will work to live up to the expectations of their customers, shareholders, employees, and other stakeholders.The MUFG Group aims to achieve stable and sustainable income growth through seeking diversified revenue bases especially in customer segment both domestically and abroad, and capital efficiency by improving productivity. In addition, they will enhance shareholder value by conducting capital management flexibly taking the balance of (1) enhancement of further shareholder returns, (2) maintenance of a solid capital base and (3) strategic investments for sustainable growth, into consideration.

Investment focus

Financial Services, FinTech, Energy
Debt Financing, Funding Round, Series A
United States, Japan, Indonesia

Portfolio highlights

Anthropic — An AI safety and research company that's working to build reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems.
IndiaMART InterMESH — IndiaMART InterMESH is an online B2B marketplace, connecting buyers with suppliers across various industries.
Reliance Industries — Reliance Industries Limited is committed to innovation-led, exponential growth in the areas of hydrocarbon exploration and production, petroleum refining and marketing, petrochemicals, retail and telecommunications.

STRIVE focuses on investing in early-stage (Seed to Series A) internet and mobile companies. It seeks out companies in Japan, Southeast Asia, and India with top-notch management teams and strong market potential. It is not tied to strategic investments for GREE Inc. and leverages its pan-Asia expertise for guiding its portfolio in an engaged,hands-on role.

Investment focus

Software, Internet, E-Commerce
Seed, Series A, Funding Round
Japan, India, Indonesia

Portfolio highlights

Asuene — Asuene involves in clean power retail business, retail SaaS business, etc.
YOUTRUST — YOUTRUST is a startup to operate YOUTRUST a referral recruitment platform for side-job change.
Testsigma — Powerful cloud-based test automation platform that lets you automate tests for web, mobile, desktop apps, and APIs in minutes. Sign up now!

An investment that restructures the value and quality.Supplying big capital is not an essential value of our firm.We have a strong attitude to input and drive critical thinking behind a new startup.After the problem is clarified and solution become established in the world,people could not imagine the society without that solution.An investment that innovates this world.We will become a real partner to execute the strategy together.INVENTION OF THE ESSENCE ----we will keep on doing it.

Investment focus

Financial Services, FinTech, Software
Seed, Series A, Series B
Japan, United States, India

Portfolio highlights

Tazapay — Experience Tazapay's best-in-class global payment solutions for businesses. Our extensive network supports cards, local payment options, and bank transfers in over 173 countries, ensuring seamless collections, secure holding, and efficient payouts worldwide.
TransBnk — Transbnk | Revolutionizing 'Global Transaction Banking' for Enhanced Business Agility, Security, and Resilience
Trustart — Trustart engages in real estate research business and real estate big data provision. The company offers real estate big data and big data subscriptions.

Since its founding in 1973, JAFCO has always worked with leading-edge entrepreneurs. The total capital commitments of its investment funds in Japan and overseas have exceeded 1 trillion yen and the number of portfolio IPOs to date has reached over 1,000. In addition to venture investment, JAFCO also carries out buyout investment and commit to thecreations of innovative technologies and services worldwide. As entrepreneurs’ closest partner in bringing their visions to life, JAFCO provides support in areas of HR, marketing/ sales, and back-office operations, in addition to providing financing.

Investment focus

Information Technology, Software, Artificial Intelligence
Series A, Funding Round, Series B
Japan, United States, Israel

Portfolio highlights

LayerX — LayerX which promotes the digitization of business processes utilizing technologies such as blockchain technology.
Commune — Commune is a developer of a platform that supports connections, community building, and customers between organizations and people.
Metagen Therapeutics — Metagen Therapeutics is a Drug discovery and medical business company which utilizes microbiome science.

OPT Ventures is an investment and incubation firm that offers startups with venture capital, investments, IPO advice, management information services, and more. The company was established on February 27, 2015, and operates as an investment subsidiary of Opt Holding Corporation, an e-marketing company based in Tokyo, Japan.

Investment focus

Software, E-Commerce, Task Management
Funding Round, Series A, Seed
Japan, United States, India

Portfolio highlights

CirclePe — Backed by India's Top Investors, connect us with your new Landlord & get a Zero Deposit move-in for the 1st time ever.
Receptionist — Delighted develops an application for reception services. The company was founded in 2016 and is based in Tokyo, Japan.
Zeelab Pharmacy — Zeelab Pharmacy brings to you a high quality affordable generic medicines delivered to your doorstep with ecommerce & network of over 200+ stores in India.

Recruit Strategic Partners is a venture capital firm that invests in innovative startups from all around the world. It is a corporate venture capital arm of Recruit Holdings that seeks to invest in education and financial technology, digital healthcare, and infrastructure sectors. It was established in 2008 and is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan.

Investment focus

E-Commerce, Software, Financial Services
Series A, Seed, Series B
United States, Japan, India

Portfolio highlights

Blacklane — Blacklane is the global chauffeur service that offers safety, sustainability, and stress-free travel. Since 2017, the company has been carbon-neutral, combining a five-star guest experience with care for the planet. The customers can book their travels using Blacklane’s mobile app or website.Blacklane was co-founded by Jens Wohltorf and FrankSteuer and is headquartered in Berlin, Germany.
Steady — Home Page Steady Your Income Home Page Steady Your Income Home Page Steady Your Income
ZenBusiness — Start a new business today for $0 or grow your existing business with the ZenBusiness platform. Get to your first dollar faster without the stress.

Energy & Environment Investment, Inc. (EEI) is Japan’s first venture capital specialized in the clean technology sector. With core members who have rich hands on experience in founding and managing venture companies, we aim to provide risk money and various strategic values to promising venture companies and businesses.

Investment focus

Software, Energy, Internet of Things
Funding Round, Series A, Series B
Japan, United States, Germany

Portfolio highlights

Ubiden — Ubiden provides Artificial intelligence and Internet of Things mobile network services. The company develops applications for electric vehicle charging services.
NABLA Mobility — Solving the complexities involved in the "Operation of Fleets" of Mobility and support its evolution and decarbonization
MetaSensing — MetaSensing specializes in the development, manufacturing, and commercialization of advanced attachable Raman sensors, designed to provide precise, real-time chemical and molecular analysis across a wide range of applications, including pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, environmental monitoring, and industrial process control.

netage, inc. is a venture capital firm specializing in startup and incubation investments. They invests in internet business. netage is located in Tokyo, Japan.

Investment focus

News, Local, Big Data
Pre-Seed, Series A
Japan

Portfolio highlights

JX Press — The JX PRESS Corporation is Japan’s“virtual news agency.”JX PRESS’s “FASTALERT” service provides breaking news bulletins for urgent information on accidents, natural disasters, and other incidents detected by AI to all six of the major television broadcast stations in Japan, including NHK, and the majority of the 100+ local broadcast stations.FASTALERT works with more companies than any other service that utilizes information gathered from social networking sites for news reporting in Japan.The version offered to ordinary consumers, an app called “NewsDigest,” is the biggest news bulletin app in Japan, boasting over 1 million downloads. It is gaining popularity because of its ability to use AI to automatically detect and deliver news bulletins on information worth reporting. Alongside FASTALERT, it is also gaining more widespread use by news reporters as a standardized service for information.Stakeholders in the JX PRESS Corporation include KYODO NEWS, the leading news agency in Japan, two of the leading commercial broadcast stations (TV Asahi and Fuji TV), and the Nikkei Group. We are a new kind of news agency that provides computerized news reporting to all of the major media groups in Japan.Bloomberg - This Media Startup Is Beating the Competition With a Newsroom Run by Robots https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-27/the-airline-geek-trying-to-build-a-media-giant-with-no-reporters
Oceans — Oceans Inc. was incorporated on September 16th, 2010 as an internet service company with the expressed goal of making the Internet more useful, more local, more here and now. Specialists from the fields of user interface, user experience, creative, programming and monetization gathered to make this possible. Currently, these development and serviceoperations professionals operate Eyeland(http://eyeland.in), a popular local communications platform.

Takaya Shinozuka is the President, CEO, and Founder at Reiwa Travel.

Investment focus

Internet, Local, Advertising
Seed, Angel, Series A
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Now Do — Now Do provides online growth revolution platform.
KAUCHE — X Asia creates enjoyable shopping experience.
Luup — Luup is an Internet Company.

Mizuho is the venture capital firm affiliated to Mizuho Bank, the second-largest Japanese bank in terms of assets. The firm has headquarters in Tokyo.The firm has ¥49.6 billion JPY under management, focusing on information technology and biotechnology investments. Over 600 Mizuho companies have gone public. According to Nikkei, Mizuho is thefifth-largest venture capital firm in Japan.Mizuho Capital was formed in 2002 by the merger of Fujigin Capital, Tokyo Venture Capital and IBJ Investment. Three firms were subsidiaries of Fuji Bank, Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank and the Industrial Bank of Japan respectively.

Investment focus

Information Technology, Software, Internet
Funding Round, Series A, Series B
Japan, United States, China

Portfolio highlights

Terass — TERASS is a High-end real estate information site.
Helical Fusion — Helical Fusion is a startup company that aims to commercialize fusion energy using magnetic confinement of high-temperature plasmas.
Metagen Therapeutics — Metagen Therapeutics is a Drug discovery and medical business company which utilizes microbiome science.

Growth Capital and Venture Debt team providing highly customized equity and debt solutions to help take leading technology companies to the next level.

Investment focus

Software, Internet, Analytics
Funding Round, Series A, Series C
United States, Japan

Portfolio highlights

NetBase Solutions — Empower your business with Quid's Generative AI platform to gain a holistic view of customer context. See data through the lens of the future. AI-powered consumer and market intelligence.
Invincea — Invincea is the leader in advanced endpoint threat protection, protecting more than 25,000 customers and 3 million active users.The company provides the most comprehensive solution to contain, identify, and control the advanced attacks that evade legacy security controls. Invincea protects enterprises against targeted threats, includingspear-phishing and Web drive-by attacks that exploit Java, Flash, and other applications. Combining the visibility and control of an endpoint solution with the intelligence of cloud analysis, Invincea offers the only market-deployed solution that defends against 0-day exploits, file-less malware, and previously unknown malware.The company has been in market with its award-winning technology since 2009. In 2011, Invincea was recognized as "Most Innovative Company of the Year" at RSA Conference, and since then the company has won numerous awards for its technology and business.Invincea maintains an OEM agreement with Dell to ship a customized version of Invincea's award-winning endpoint security solution, under the Dell Data Protection | Protected Workspace brand. This offering ships on Dell's entire line of commercial PCs and tablets, comprising 20 million devices per year.The company, which was founded by Dr. Anup Ghosh to address the rapidly increasing security threat from nation states, cyber criminals, and rogue actors, has commercialized technology originally built under DARPA funding. The company is venture capital-backed and based in Fairfax, VA. For more information, visit https://www.invincea.com.
Space Market — Space Market is a service that can easily lend and borrow from conference rooms to uninhabited islands.

Delight Ventures is a venture capital firm that thoroughly reduces the hurdles of entrepreneurship in Japan and supports entrepreneurs in the world. Entrepreneurship is taken as a natural career path, and we aim to be a society where both successful and unsuccessful people can continue to take on challenges.

Investment focus

Software, Artificial Intelligence, Information Technology
Seed, Series A, Series B
Japan, United States, South Korea

Portfolio highlights

KAUCHE — KAUCHE is a social commerce app. They provide services for online and mail-order retail shops. Their customers' inquiries are addressed through phone, email, and online applications.
OSHIAI — OSHIAI is an AI chat software that lets you communicate with your favorite idol's "Ai" avatar, which represents their hobbies, preferences, and speaking style.
NaLaLys — NaLaLys is a business consulting firm that provides management, distribution, research, and consulting services.

Based in Tokyo, Adways is a mobile marketing solution provider mostly known for its Asia’s largest mobile CPI adnetwork “AppDriver” and mobile app measurement & tracking tool “PartyTrack” used by great number of major app developers around the world. Since 2004 when it opened the first overseas office in China, Adways has been aggressivelyexpanding its mobile app distribution network in Asian markets. Now with 1,000 employees in 11 countries (Japan, China, Korea, Taiwan, India, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore and the USA), Adways supports app developers worldwide to maximize their user acquisition and monetization and furthermore thrives to provide new value to the market. Haruhisa Okamura is Founder and CEO of Adways who has grown Adways from a small startup to an international corporation with over a thousand employees around the world. In 2006, Adways went public and Okamura was one of the youngest entrepreneurs to list a company in Japan at that time.You can read his story here: "How a high school dropout became a multi-millionaire entrepreneur" http://www.techinasia.com/high-school-dropout-multimillionaire-entrepreneur/

Investment focus

Internet, Media and Entertainment, Software
Funding Round, Seed, Series A
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Brhino — Brhino provides planning, development, and management of web services. The company's product, Monokabu, is a site where people can buy and sell sneakers and things like stock. Brhino is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan.
MICOLY — MICOLY is a operator of a website aimed at publishing and selling creative video lessons. The company hosts lectures that are presented by the creators of all categories who are keen on sharing their techniques and philosophies in areas of nail art, Japanese calligraphy, flower arrangement, knitting and many more, as well as interacting with theirpassionate fans, enabling users to take creative lessons and start a new hobby.
MiddleField — MiddleField is a team to make cars the best entertainment and to make the lives of everyone involved in cars into entertainment. They creates a society where a lot of people are involved as a middle point of all people's dreams. MiddleField owns and operates an e-commerce platform offering cars.

Upsider Blue Dream Fund offers growth finance and innovative solutions for growth-stage entrepreneurs.

Investment focus

Internet
Debt Financing
Japan

Portfolio highlights

KAUCHE — KAUCHE is a social commerce app. They provide services for online and mail-order retail shops. Their customers' inquiries are addressed through phone, email, and online applications.
FLUX — FLUX provide “FLUX Header Bidding Solution” that creates fair competition opportunities and significantly increases advertising revenue within the header bidding server, ad requests are sent to SSPs and ad exchanges all at once, so it is possible to have a pure price competition without prioritization, and to determine the highest bid amount andvalue of the advertising space. I can. Then, the price of the highest bid ad in the header bidding and the ad set in the ad server are competed, and the ad with the higher bid is delivered.
Landit — Landit manages transportation infrastructure and real estate technology firms.

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