Top 50 Marketplace Angel Investors in Japan in May 2025
A list of 50 angel investors that invest in Marketplace startups based in Japan. We rank investors based on the number of investments they made in Marketplace companies from Japan. We update this investor list every month.Top 50 Marketplace Angel Investors in Japan in May 2025
Investor | Marketplace Japan investments |
---|---|
Kotaro Chiba | 8 |
Kotaro Chiba | 8 |
Yu Akasaka | 8 |
Yusuke Sato | 6 |
Hidetoshi Takano | 5 |
Kensuke Furukawa | 4 |
Ayataro Nakagawa | 4 |
Kazuhiko Ishikura | 3 |
Kazuma Ieiri | 3 |
Hirofumi Miki | 3 |
Kazuhiro Ishikura | 3 |
Takaya Shinozuka | 3 |
Naruhisa Nakagawa | 3 |
Masaru Tange | 3 |
Shintaro Yamada | 3 |
Tsunezawa Kahoko | 2 |
Naoki Aoyagi | 2 |
Shintaro Tabata | 2 |
Osamu Ogasawara | 2 |
Richard Chen | 2 |
Fumiaki Koizumi | 2 |
Keisuke Kogure | 2 |
Uenoyama Katsuya | 2 |
Toru Shimada | 2 |
Christine Herron | 2 |
Yuzuru Honda | 2 |
Yoichi Aso | 2 |
Shunsuke Oyu | 2 |
Yasuyuki Kin | 2 |
Daisaku Harada | 2 |
Mamoru Taniya | 2 |
Yusuke Tanaka | 2 |
Soichiro Kawai | 2 |
Joshua Stevens | 1 |
Hayama Takashi | 1 |
Eiko Matsumura | 1 |
Yoshihiro Yamauchi | 1 |
Shohei Sasaki | 1 |
Tetsuro Yoshimatsu | 1 |
Dan Neary | 1 |
Toshiro Wakimaru | 1 |
Shogo Kawada | 1 |
Narimatsu Jun | 1 |
Sakano Atsushi | 1 |
Will Neale | 1 |
Yasumasa Manabe | 1 |
Tatsuo Sakamoto | 1 |
Hisayoshi Mizutani | 1 |
Tomitsuka Yu | 1 |
Mikuru Asakura | 1 |
Kotaro Chiba is the founder of ChibaDojo Fund. Kotaro Chiba attended Keio University.
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Investment focus
- Information Technology, Content, Internet
- 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.
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Investment focus
- Information Technology, 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.
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.
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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.
Yusuke Sato is the Co-Representative and Co-Founder of Pulit.
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Investment focus
- Content, Internet, Food and Beverage
- Seed, Funding Round, Angel
- Japan, Indonesia, United States
Portfolio highlights
- Kaimak — Kaymak is a recruitment platform that focuses on creating a recruitment website, planning a recruitment strategy, and managing candidates.
- 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.
- Driver Technologies — Driver Technologies is a cloud logistics platform provider. It provides a solution for driver matching and cargo vehicle demands.
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.
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Investment focus
- Internet, Information Technology, Human Resources
- Seed, Angel, Funding Round
- Japan, United States
Portfolio highlights
- Kaimak — 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.
Kensuke Furukawa was born in June 2, 1981. He graduated Waseda University majoring Political Science and Economics, and in 2000, he launched "Milkcafe", a student community, which has grown to a site with 10 million PV per month. In 2004, he became the CEO of Media Clip, which operates a rental bulletin board service "ShitarabaBBS". After that year, he had transfer "Shitaraba BBS" to Livedoor, and took charge of starting up the Consumer Generated Media sector. In 2006, he joined Recruit, and took charge of starting up a new business at Business development sector. In June of 2009, he left Recruit, and became the CEO of nanapi (formerly Rocket Start), which operates the How-to Site "nanapi".
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Investment focus
- Content, Social Media, Media and Entertainment
- Seed, Funding Round, Angel
- Japan
Portfolio highlights
- iiba — Iiba is a geospatial platform that specializes in providing location information related to child-rearing.
- Tohakusha — Tohakusha is a creative agency that offers design, production and sale of digital content and EC websites, and content creation services.
- Neighbor — Neighbor is a metaverse game developer that specializes in Fortnite.
2011 At university, participated in the founding period as a director of Atcole Co., Ltd., and started the web service experience.2012 Founded Peroli Co., Ltd.,
which operates a curation platform for women "MERY" .2014 Founded Peroli
Co., Ltd. Sold to DeNA
2015 Jointly established Tokyo Founders Fund as an angel investor and startedinvesting in startups in Japan and overseas
2019 Appointed outside director of FIREBUG Co., Ltd.
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Investment focus
- Internet, Software, Content
- Seed, Angel, Funding Round
- Japan, Hong Kong, United States
Portfolio highlights
- Mepple — Mepple is planning, developing, and operating internet services.
- For you — For you is a comprehensive Advertising agency business specializing in SNS.
- SPORTS CROWN — SPORTS CROWN engages in the development and operation of fantasy sports.
Kazuhiko Ishikura is based out of Tokyo, Tokyo and is the Co-Founder and Director of SDF Capital. Kazuhiko previously worked at 3minute Inc. as a Director. Kazuhiko Ishikura attended Aoyama Gakuin University.
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Investment focus
- Beauty, Content, Fashion
- Seed, Angel, Pre-Seed
- Japan
Portfolio highlights
- Neith — Neith is a apparel manufacturer, seller and a whoelseller of water absorbing bralette, lingerie and shorts for women.
- WARC — 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.
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.
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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.
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.
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Investment focus
- Content, Marketing, Internet
- Seed, Angel, Pre-Seed
- Japan
Portfolio highlights
- 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.
- Ai-Dounyu.com — Ai-Dounyu.com is a platform that helps organizations looking to integrate AI choose their ideal AI implementation partner for free.
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.
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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 — 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.
Takaya Shinozuka is the President, CEO, and Founder at Reiwa Travel.
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Investment focus
- Internet, Local, Advertising
- Seed, Angel, Series A
- Japan
Naruhisa Nakagawa is a Founder & Chief Investment Officer at Caygan Capital.
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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.
Masaru Tange graduated from Kyoto University and joined Incs Inc. in 2000 where he started their IT business and strategy consulting group with only 2 members and developed it into the company's main business with a team of 140 consultants with annual revenue of $50M in 5 years. He then founded SHIFT Inc in 2005 in his studio apartment. He wasthe only employee. The business world wasn't very kind to him - he made no revenue for a while but he kept experimenting with the business model listening to the needs of customers. In 2009, he finally found traction in the "software testing industry." In 2014, Masaru successfully IPO'ed the company. Shift now has 500 employees.
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Investment focus
- E-Commerce, Food Delivery, Internet
- Seed, Series A
- Japan, United States
Portfolio highlights
- Timee — Timee is a Planning, development and management of Internet media company.
- S-Mat — Smartmat is an eco-friendly IoT purchase system for on-demand, no-hassle grocery with cost-effective shipping.
- Launchable — Shorter test runs, smarter test triaging, test health insights, and test failure analysis. Remove friction from the dev-test loop to iterate & ship faster.
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.
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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 — Buy or sell your car in Nairobi-Kenya with ease. Browse a wide range of vehicles, connect with trusted sellers, and find the perfect car today. Simple, fast, and secure transactions.
- AnotherBall — AnotherBall is a blockchain startup that combines entertainment and blockchain.
Tsunezawa Kahoko
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Investment focus
- Shopping, Apps, Travel
- Seed, Angel, Funding Round
- Japan, Germany
Portfolio highlights
- Menew — Menew is an online platform that enables users to organize and set menus for family meals. Users can track family preferences and trends; make shopping lists; and get an easy-to-read calendar format for the menus.
- Valise — Valise provides insider access & unique experiences to the modern day internationalist. A perfect jump start to who & what is hot in creative capitals. At its core is the Valise Society - a global private members association for innovative leaders of the creative class.
- Valise — Valise is a women's travel service platform.
Naoki Aoyagi is a Senior Vice President at GREE, Inc. and Chief Executive Officer of GREE International, Inc. He joined GREE, Inc. in March 2006 from Deutsche Bank, where he had specialized in tech and media sector IPOs and M&A advisory work. At GREE, Aoyagi oversaw the Company's partnership with KDDI and its IPO before leading thedevelopment of GREE’s global operations, a role he continues today. Aoyagi earned a bachelor's degree in policy management from Keio University in 2002.
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Investment focus
- Internet, Fashion, Software
- Seed, Angel, Series A
- Japan
Portfolio highlights
- Enechain — enechain provides liquidity in Japan’s energy market by brokering OTC transactions of energy.
- Parallel — Parallel is the hangout app where you can enjoy games, videos, music, and more with friends.
- Holmes — Holmesis a cloud contract system to consistently carry out the creation, conclusion and management of contracts in the cloud.
Shintaro Tabata - Senior Vice President and Head of Corporate Sales @ Line
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Investment focus
- Sharing Economy, Audio, Content
- Seed, Angel, Series A
- Japan
Portfolio highlights
- Voicy — Voicy is a mobile platform that recruits both media personalities and news organizations; the entertainers read the news so users can get the latest info from their favorite voices.
- Carstay — Carstay Comfortable Overnight in car or tentdo itCar tripWith guests who want to enjoy.
- Telework — Telework is a multi-location workspace that utilizes vacant seats and rooms.
Osamu Ogasahara is the founder, CEO, and president of FGN ABBA Lab.
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Investment focus
- SNS, Content, Fashion
- Angel, Funding Round
- Japan
Portfolio highlights
- CAMPFIRE — Campfire engages in the planning, development, and operation of a crowd funding platform.They operate the largest cloud funding platform in Japan [CAMPFIRE (campfire)], which supports "whoever wants to start something."The fee is 5% of the domestic level, and about 15,000 projects have collected about $70million in total from over700,000 people.
Richard Chen
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Investment focus
- Mobile, Software, Advertising
- Seed, Angel, Series A
- United States, Japan, Singapore
Portfolio highlights
- Farel — Say farewell to piecing together different vendors, integrations, and clunky software. Farel delivers one seamless, all-in-one, software platform engineered for growing airlines.
- Maslo — We make companions that care about people.
- Kinnek — Potential customers are looking for reasons to trust your company, and they want third-party sources to vouch for you. Kinnek helps suppliers like you build a world-class online reputation and easily share it. Because when you win more trust, more prospects become loyal customers.
Fumiaki Koizumi - Executive Director @ Mercari
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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.
Mr. Keisuke Kogure serves as general partner at Mint.
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Investment focus
- Beauty, iOS, Health Care
- Seed, Series A, Angel
- Japan
Portfolio highlights
- Requpo — Requpo is a brand-new salon reservation app that allows you to book a beauty salon without having to search.
- MoonJapan — MoonJapan is an educational impact startup that offers a variety of programs and thorough assistance.
- Respo — Respo is a service that enables people to save money by buying things at a discount.
Uenoyama Katsuya - CEO @ PKSHA Technology
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Investment focus
- Fashion, Software, Advertising
- Seed, Angel, Corporate Round
- Japan
Portfolio highlights
- Babel — Babel is creating meaningful media for users and expanding globally.
- AppBrew — AppBrew develops LIPS, a mobile application for users to share and read real reviews on cosmetics, nail care, personal care, hair care, and other related products of different brands. The company was founded in 2016 and is based in Tokyo, Japan.
- Neural Pocket — Neural Pocket provides Smart City related services for commercial buildings and urban spaces utilizing AI enabled image recognition technology. The company focuses on business development and co-creation serve its clients. Other applications include solutions for digitalization of factories, warehouses, parking lots and retail stores.
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.
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Investment focus
- Internet, Task Management, Marketing
- Seed, Angel, Funding Round
- Japan
Portfolio highlights
Christine Herron is an early-stage investor and diversity advocate, and co-leads the Intel Capital Diversity Fund while leading investments in early-stage companies. She is responsible for diversity investing across Intel Capital sectors, to support technology companies founded or run by women, underrepresented minorities, LGBTQ, or veterans. AtIntel, Christine's direct portfolio includes 500 Friends (ACQ: Merkle), betaworks, Brit Media, E la Carte, Funders Club, Goldbely, Jelli, Movable Ink, SmartZip, Storenvy (ACQ: OpenSky), Two Bit Circus, and Yummly (ACQ: WHR), and Intel Education Accelerator companies Comprendio, Immersed Games, Sutori, and Vidcode.Previously, Christine was an investor with seed stage venture fund First Round Capital, working with Better Finance, Double Verify, Get Satisfaction (ACQ: Sprinklr), Mint (ACQ: INTU), and Xobni (ACQ: YHOO). At Omidyar Network, she developed the Media and Web 2.0 practice strategy and led deals such as Common Sense Media and Socialtext.At Geocapital Partners, Christine focused on early Internet and network technology, leading Series A funding for AXON Networks (ACQ: 3COM), D-Vision (ACQ: ADSK), FocusVision (MBO), Netcom (IPO: NETC), and ViaGrafix (IPO: VIAX). Christine was also a founder or early employee at GiftWorks (ACQ: FrontStream), Mercury2, and NetObjects (IPO: NETC).Christine earned an MBA from Stanford University and a BA from Columbia University. She is a founding advisor or mentor to 500 Startups, Bullpen Capital, and StartX, and serves on Alonzo King's LINES Ballet Board of Directors. She is active on @christine and a frequent speaker.
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Investment focus
- E-Commerce, Personalization, Social Media
- Seed, Series A, Series B
- United States, Japan
Portfolio highlights
- Roominate — Playing with the W77 online game site can certainly produce crazy jackpots to riches
- Soldsie — Soldsie (formerly Centrally) is a payment system enabling merchants to monetize their Facebook page by allowing customers to purchase through comments.Customers register their payment information with Soldsie, and then comment on stores’ pages, channels and feeds to activate a charge to their account, and initiate the shipping process.Merchants use the Soldsie administrative dashboard track and manage inventory and shipping, and experience increased user comments, views and viral shares.
- Tokyo Otaku Mode — The ultimate online destination for fans of Japanese pop culture.
Yuzuru Honda is a Founder & Global CEO of FreakOut.
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Investment focus
- SNS, Internet, Software
- Seed, Funding Round, Angel
- Japan, Nigeria, Singapore
Portfolio highlights
- NodeFlair — NodeFlair aims to help tech talents make better career decisions through jobs, salaries, reviews, company insights, and more
- AGRI SMILE — AGRI SMILE is a platform that focuses on sharing agricultural technology.
- Tyms — Tyms online accounting software for your business connects you to your bank, accountant, bookkeeper, and other business apps. Start a free trial today. Also available in Nigeria, Ghana, Mauritius and South Africa.
Yoichi Aso is the President and CEO at Alpha Drive.
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Investment focus
- E-Commerce, Apparel, Digital Media
- Seed, Angel, Funding Round
- Japan
Portfolio highlights
- Kamado — Kamado is a publisher of magazines. They offer products that include artist articles, colomn article series, and web magazines.
- Yondemy — Yondemy is an online platform for children reading books.
- Log build — Log build offers a new form of on-site management that enables productivity improvement and real-time visualization and sharing of on-site information through on-site management robots and VR software. The company provides AI development, VR development, construction site construction management robot, cloud site management, and construction siteplatform.
Shunsuke Oyu is the co-founder of Connehito Inc.
Started an online Q&A platform “mamari” which is the largest platform for moms in Japan. Connehito was acquired by one of the telecom giant KDDI in 2016.
Selected as a “Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia” at consumer technology department. Angel-investing 50+ companies globally.
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Investment focus
- Content, Internet, Media and Entertainment
- Seed, Angel, Funding Round
- Japan, Singapore, United States
Portfolio highlights
- Tohakusha — Tohakusha is a creative agency that offers design, production and sale of digital content and EC websites, and content creation services.
- Ai-Dounyu.com — Ai-Dounyu.com is a platform that helps organizations looking to integrate AI choose their ideal AI implementation partner for free.
- Neighbor — Neighbor is a metaverse game developer that specializes in Fortnite.
Yasuyuki Kin
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Investment focus
- Media and Entertainment, Information Technology, Career Planning
- Seed, Angel, Pre-Seed
- Japan
Portfolio highlights
- Onepair — Onepair is a job consulting and recruiting company. Onepair is to co-creating careers by talking about real-world ace with active ace.
- Strainer Co., Ltd. — Strainer Co., Ltd. is an information distribution platform that conveys corporate information centered on financial data. Although there are not a few media to deliver financial information, the company's strengths are strong to be easily viewed, including financial information of overseas companies.
- LAMILA — LAMILA develops system that improves the creation of retail stores.
Daisaku Harada is the Director of Management Strategy at Mercari. Daisaku attended Chuo University.
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Investment focus
- Finance, Tourism, Automotive
- Seed, Pre-Seed
- Japan
Portfolio highlights
- Carstay — Carstay Comfortable Overnight in car or tentdo itCar tripWith guests who want to enjoy.
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.
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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.
"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.
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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.
Soichiro Kawai - CEO @ ReBoost
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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.
- Back Dooor — Back Dooor is an app that provides 1on1 chatting services with favorite player of the users.
- SPeak Corporation — SPeak Corporation operates JPort Match that is involved in direct recruiting service. It is a global career platform for budding new talents.
Joshua Stevens
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Investment focus
- E-Commerce
- Pre-Seed
- Japan
Portfolio highlights
- Kuai Commerce — Kuai Commerce is a next-generation solution for ambitious brands looking to sell directly to Chinese Gen Z consumers through the power of social commerce. Our tech-enabled services provide market entry and brand acceleration options for emerging category-leaders who otherwise would find the complexity of China prohibitively challenging
Hayama Takashi - Outside Director @ Eco Style
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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.
Eiko Matsumura - President / CEO @ BASKET
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Investment focus
- Apps, Beauty, Health Care
- Seed
- Japan
Portfolio highlights
- emol — emol is an application that records emotions and talks with AI robots.emol provide personalized mental and productivity training based on mental data to promote employee well-being and increase employee engagement.
Yoshihiro Yamauchi is a individual investor.
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Investment focus
- Social, E-Commerce, Sustainability
- Seed
- Japan
Portfolio highlights
- Gab — Gab is a company that works to solve social problems as well as develops and markets ethical products.
Shohei Sasaki - CFO @ LeapMind
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Investment focus
- Content, Fashion, Consulting
- Seed, Angel
- Japan
Portfolio highlights
- yutori — Yutoriis a Startup to expand the D2C business and influencer brand.
- Meetcareer — Meetcareer provides online counseling services for career planning.
Tetsuro Yoshimatsu is the President and Chief Executive Officer of istyle.
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Investment focus
- Legal, Sales, Biofuel
- Seed, Funding Round
- Japan
Portfolio highlights
- Coconala — Coconala operates a website to buy and sell knowledge, skills and, experience from users who are willing to teach. It provides a broad range of services for sellers including fortune-telling, relieving mental anguish, illustration, design, consultation for hobbies, and travel destinations. The company was founded in 2012 and is based in Japan.
- Fermenstation — Fermen Station provides consulting services on the utilization of local resources, adding value, and creating new products. In addition, develop product development business by utilizing fermentation technology. We also provide education and information on brewing and fermentation technology.
Dan Neary is a Vice President of Asia Pacific at Meta. He attended DePaul University.
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Investment focus
- News, Events, Travel
- Seed, Funding Round
- Japan, Singapore
Portfolio highlights
- e27 — e27 is Asia's largest Tech media platform. We cover the latest news on emerging and disruptive businesses across the region. e27 also organizes world-class events like Echelon.
- Voyagin — Voyagin is the tours and activities marketplace in Asia with a mission to help travelers discover and book the best travel experiences across Asia. Its website features over 1,800 things to do including tickets to museums and shows, cultural activities, romantic dinners, adventure experiences, and private guides bookable in English, Japanese, andChinese in over 50 destinations in Asia, in advance or in destination via its mobile optimized website. The Voyagin team believes that "travel in Asia is broken." Guests end up sightseeing because unique experiences are hard to find and insecure to book; hosts end up spending time and money on websites which are hard to update and mostly out of date. They also believe that an "experience is more than just an activity; it's about meeting people, trying something new and seeing the world from a different perspective." In hopes to differentiate themselves, they traveled around Asia to find and curate the best experiences and hosts.Launched in 2012, Voyagin provides a trusted platform for tours and activities providers (hosts) in Asia to list their experiences; its team of community managers work with each host to curate their activities both online and during the experience, ensuring their quality. Backed by its 100% satisfaction guarantee, multilingual customer support, and verified reviews from actual guests, Voyagin is the best place for travelers visiting Asia to discover and book their next local experience.Voyagin was founded in 2011 as FindJPN, a marketplace for authentic activities in Japan. FindJPN changed its name to Voyagin in December 2012 when they expanded into Asia.
Toshiro “Tosh” Wakimaru is the Chief Operating Officer of MedPeer, Inc. , Tokyo, Japan since May 2010. Medpeer is the “Medical Doctor Exclusive” SNS in Japan that has just successfully gone to the market in 2014.Prior to the current job, Tosh had been actively working for Price Waterhouse Consulting, Japan LLP (now IBM Japan, Ltd.) aftergraduating from the Boston University School of Management in 1996. While there he completed numerous projects in corporate strategy, operation improvement, and new business development focusing on the retail, service, and healthcare industries with a secondment to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.
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Investment focus
- Task Management, Food and Beverage, SNS
- Seed, Funding Round
- Japan, India
Portfolio highlights
- Clear — Clear, Inc. operates sake subscription service “SAKELIFE".
- Cub McPaws — Buy comfortably fashionable kids clothes (4 - 12 years) online in India from Cub Mcpaws at best prices. Gorgeous dresses, jumpsuits, t-shirts, shirts & bottom wear for boys and girls | Free Shipping | COD
- 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.
Shogo Kawada is Co-founder and Adviser of DeNA, a global Internet company focused on a social games platform, social games, e-commerce and other Web services for mobile devices and PCs.
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Investment focus
- Software, SaaS, Media and Entertainment
- Seed, Funding Round, Angel
- Japan, United States
Portfolio highlights
- Voicy — Voicy is a mobile platform that recruits both media personalities and news organizations; the entertainers read the news so users can get the latest info from their favorite voices.
- Sunblaze — sunblaze is a android-based smartphone users begin to experience stability issues after one to two years of use. For example, their device may get slower or they encounter unexpected app crashes. These stability issues also lead to security vulnerabilities.SUNBLAZE OS features essential functions only, meaning it does not have any unnecessaryfunctions. This allows the system to be more stable and secure, and users are able to use it for a longer period of time.
- Spider Labs — Spider Labs offers solutions to help fight ad fraud and ensure data security.
Narimatsu Jun - Outside Director @ FiNC Technologies
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Investment focus
- Content, Media and Entertainment, SEO
- Seed, Angel, Series A
- Japan
Portfolio highlights
- Pulit — Pulit innovates the brand new Content Distribution Infra.
- Play Life — PlayLife is an experience sharing site where you can search, share, and post play information, where users can actually experience and plan a fun experience as know-how of play. It is a service that provides highly reliable information under the real name system, provides know-how that only experienced users can know, and information thatcoordinates the way of spending a day, making play more fun and convenient.
- State of Mind — State of Mind is the development and operation of the cloud sourcing.
Sakano Atsushi
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Investment focus
- Medical, Nursing and Residential Care, SaaS
- Seed, Series B
- Japan
Portfolio highlights
- Heartseed — Heartseed has set a mission to “open the door to heart disease treatment with regenerative medicine” and is working toward the day-to-day clinical application of myocardial regenerative medicine.
- Matsuri Technologies — matsuri technologies is a real estate tech company that provides solutions to support private property rentals. The company's products include m2m Systems, an Airbnb management platform that helps business operators to manage their accounts, communicate with guests, automate check-ins, offer customer service, and more.
Founder (Grabyo, Fonix). Investor.
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Investment focus
- FinTech, Financial Services, Software
- Seed, Pre-Seed, Funding Round
- United Kingdom, Italy, Japan
Portfolio highlights
- qomodo — Qomodo: La piattaforma BNPL innovativa. Rate a tasso zero, approvazioni veloci, transazioni sicure. Rivoluzionaria nell'acquisto per aziende e consumatori.
- Verisian — Verisian accelerates drug time to market with the industry's first platform offering real study traceability (CDISC, SDTM, ADaM, TFLs)
- SAPI — SAPI builds credit products for payment companies to facilitate payment flows, engage and retain merchants, and generate new revenue.
Yasumasa Manabe
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Investment focus
- Information Technology, Drones, Big Data
- Seed, Series A, Funding Round
- Japan
Portfolio highlights
- Miraikikai — Miraikikai is a start-up originating from Kagawa University with a mission to create intelligent mobile robots for professional-use.Their robots products, designed based on field reseach to provide the high quality and the best cost effective solution, are achieved with mechanical design and control technology backed by the latest researchachievements and years of experience.
- Metro Weather — Metroweather is a venture from Kyoto University that develops a high-performance Doppler lidar that measures the direction and speed of wind several tens of kilometers away from minute movements of fine particles in the atmosphere. We aim to contribute to the safety of the sky by completing a three-dimensional wind map, which has never beenrealized,based on years of research at the Kyoto University Research Institute for Sustainable Areas.
- XTREME-D Inc. — XTREME-D, formerly known as XTREME-Design Inc., is well-known in Japan for architecting technical computing in the cloud. The award-winning company develops and sells XTREME-DNA, a cloud-based, virtual, supercomputing-on-demand service. XTREME-DNA was launched to cut costs and make it easy to build HPC clusters in just in 10 minutes.XTREMEDEISIGN Inc. was founded in February 2015 by Naoki Shibata. And it is based in Tokyo.
Tatsuo Sakamoto is a Head of Sales, Japan at MOLOCO. He Attended The University of Tokyo.
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Investment focus
- Information Technology, Education, Recruiting
- Seed, Angel, Pre-Seed
- Japan
Portfolio highlights
- Bgrass — bgrass is a consultation support platform for women working in the IT industry.
- Cloudbase — Cloudbase is an information technology company that specializes in the fields of cloud services and management.
- Metaverse Creators — Metaverse Creators is a feature-rich virtual platform providing gamers with a wide range of games, creation tools, and avatar editing tools.
Hisayoshi Mizutani - President & CEO @ vivit
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Investment focus
- E-Commerce, Health Care
- Seed
- Japan
Portfolio highlights
- Elaly — Elaly Technology makes life better for people around the world.We aim to make the value of money and the experience gained from it flatter.As many people as possible will use technology to realize a happier life, independent of the money economy.
- SOELU — SOELU is an online yoga studio where you can take lessons from popular instructors at home for women only. Even if you can't attend yoga classes, the instructor will guide you through the screen, so you can continue online at home!
Tomitsuka Yu - President @ Yuko Yuko
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Investment focus
- Apparel, E-Commerce, E-Commerce Platforms
- Angel
- Japan
Portfolio highlights
- Sally127 — Sally127 provide promotional support services and consulting services that can be utilized on e-commerce sites for apparel companies.
Mikuru Asakura
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Investment focus
- Beauty, Cosmetics
- Seed
- Japan
Portfolio highlights
- THE RICH — THE RICH is a hair care brand that contains silk regenerating and repairing ingredients.
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