Top 20 Local Startup Investors in Japan (June 2026)

Portfolio highlights

• Near Intelligence — Near, the world’s largest source of intelligence on People, Places, and Products is the global leader in Data Intelligence empowering organizations of all sizes to make smart, strategic decisions delivering optimal business performance. We unite Marketers and Operational data leaders by providing the most accurate, reliable source of data thatdelivers actionable insights on People, Places, and Products in both the physical and digital space.Near is backed by leading investors including Sequoia Capital, JP Morgan Private Equity Group, Cisco Investments and Telstra Ventures. Visit www.near.com to find out more.
• Otetsutabi — Otetsutabi is a regional revitalization platform that offers the opportunity for participants to help at accommodations and breweries in rural areas that struggle with seasonal labor shortages. The locals offer transportation expenses and places to stay in return, so participants can travel to the areas with ease.
• Supercritical — We partner with industry to move and think beyond fossil fuels with innovative clean technology solutions.

Portfolio highlights

• Letara — Letara operates a space technology platform with the intention to serve a logistics network covering the solar system. The company produces hybrid propulsion engines for small spacecraft, promoting groundbreaking advances in space propulsion with high thrust, safe, and inexpensive propulsion system technology.
• Akari Hosho — Akari Hosho provides a group of trusted professionals, including lawyers and judicial scriveners. Akari Hosho provides a guarantee service.
• Black Cat Carnival — Black Cat Carnival Inc. is a communication service development company.

Portfolio highlights

• Emole — Emole is a platform that connects content creators with viewers through short drama content, offering a variety of engaging stories.
• 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.
• Domuz — Domuz is a firm that wants to utilize technology and design to create a lifestyle that makes potted plants and flowers more comfortable.

Portfolio highlights

• Fondi — fondi is a completely new English conversation communication service that allows you to live a virtual communal life with the world.
• Taian — Taian, which specializes in bridal industry services and software. They also provide ''Concept Marry,'' which allows couples to design invites and seating charts that match their wedding theme, as well as display guest information on Oiwaii.
• Knowledge Work — Knowledge Work specializes in the development and sales of software for companies.

Portfolio highlights

• Recho — Recho’s voice AI solutions must offer some unique features. Recho has a mission to "create the future of communication" and provides the VoiceAI platform and its application, Voice Agent.
• Pliant — Pliant makes the latest generation of corporate credit cards that adapt perfectly to business processes and needs.
• Captain Fresh — Captain Fresh is a freshwater fish and seafood supply chain platform. Captain Fresh is a B2B marketplace leveraging technology to deliver the fastest harvest-to-retail in the industry. The company focuses on aggregating the fragmented retail demand across the country and linking them to the small fishermen and farmers throughout the Indian coast.The company was founded in 2019 and is based in Bengaluru, India.

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.

Portfolio highlights

• DataBank — DataBank provides scalable and secure data center solutions for enterprises, offering colocation, cloud, and managed services. Our expert team ensures 24/7 support and maximum uptime for your critical IT infrastructure.
• Axis Bank — We are third largest private sector bank in India offering entire spectrum of financial services for personal & corporate banking.
• Evren — Evren is a platform for generating power from renewable sources.

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.

Portfolio highlights

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

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.

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!

Portfolio highlights

• Pictoria — Pictoria produce total events for entertainment.They handle a wide range of events, from talk events to events using advanced technologies such as 3D motion capture.
• Onestruction — Onestruction is an IT firm that offers construction solution development, 3D model and document creation, and operational support services.
• Illumi Medical — Illumi Medical is a manufacturing company that produces medical equipment and devices for the healthcare sector.

Portfolio highlights

• Agatha — Agatha is a provider of strategic software solutions to the health care and life sciences industry. It is dedicated to helping hospitals, biotechnology, pharmaceutical, contract research organizations, and medical device firms optimize the management of their quality and clinical documentation and processes.
• Aperza — Aperza's mission is to contribute to redesigning the manufacturing industry by eliminating three barriers in the industry which are the barrier of information, transaction and communication which most of companies and people often face in this industry.Manufacturing industry is Japanese core industry. We would like to contribute to therebirth of this industry by those activities such as supporting those companies who challenges the global market and supporting those start-ups who tries brand-new industry trend such as Industry 4.0, smart factory or IoT. We believe that this lead to the increase of the people in this industry, and the growth of the industry eventually.
• Bureau — Bureau is trust network that facilitates end-to-end identity verification, compliance, and fraud prevention for new-age businesses.

Portfolio highlights

• CUSTA —
• Dishwill —
• PartnerProp — PartnerProp is a PRM tool with outstanding potential and a wide variety of capabilities that resolves all partner business difficulties.

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.

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.
• Landit — Landit manages transportation infrastructure and real estate technology firms.
• Rapyuta Robotics — Rapyuta Robotics is a global technology startup that builds cloud robotics solutions. Spun out of the Swiss Federal Institute (ETH Zürich) in 2014, the company now has about 90 employees global, and offices in Japan, and India. While improvements in technology are helping to make robotics more accessible to markets, the ability to integrate all therequired expertise remains a barrier for most companies. Rapyuta Robotics’ platform makes it significantly easier for businesses to deploy robotics solutions without needing in-house robotics expertise. By integrating robot hardware, software, sensor data, and applications in the cloud -- where powerful data centers manage the heavy computation -- Rapyuta’s platform lets end-users focus on their business processes instead of on managing robot hardware or software infrastructure.

Portfolio highlights

• Caguuu — Caguuu offers high-quality designer furniture at affordable prices, through e-commerce, eliminating middlemen and store operating costs.
• QREATION — QREATION is a digital intellectual property studio specializing in producing a wide range of popular content that originates primarily from social media platforms. The company focuses on creating high-quality short-form entertainment, including short dramas, comedy sketches, and variety shows.
• ARCS — ARCS specializes in developing assisted reproductive medical devices using robotics and artificial intelligence technology.

Portfolio highlights

• Fager — Fager is an agriculture firm specializing in promoting decarbonization projects, agricultural carbon production, and sales.
• Shippio — Shippio is a service that enables a wide range of collective international logistics arrangements and management solutions via web.The platform features full-service export and import solutions for various international transportation needs; a special dashboard designated for import and export business, shipment, cost analysis, and invoicemanagement; and documentation support.
• Power Wave — Power Wave seeks a carbon-neutral world using wave technology for wireless power, tackling global warming and fuel depletion.

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.

Portfolio highlights

• Logiless — Logiless is a cloud type all-in-one software dedicated to net shop. Since both orders and stocks can be managed together in a logical manner, efficiency of operations can be realized at low cost.
• ARCS — ARCS specializes in developing assisted reproductive medical devices using robotics and artificial intelligence technology.
• OpenHeart — OpenHeart is a provider of the tactile 3D platform.