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Top 50 Media (entertainment) Angel Investors in Japan in October 2024

Last updated: Oct 2024 A list of 50 angel investors that invest in Media (entertainment) startups based in Japan. We rank investors based on the number of investments they made in Media (entertainment) companies from Japan. We update this investor list every month.

Top 50 Media (entertainment) Angel Investors in Japan in October 2024

Investor	Media (entertainment) Japan investments
Yusuke Sato	12
Kotaro Chiba	11
Kotaro Chiba	11
Kensuke Furukawa	11
Yu Akasaka	9
Ayataro Nakagawa	8
Nobuhiro Ariyasu	7
Hidetoshi Takano	7
Yasuyuki Kin	7
Masao Ito	7
Hirofumi Miki	7
Ryosuke Matsumoto	6
Mamoru Taniya	5
Shuuichi Wada	5
Kiyohiro Sugashita	5
Noguchi Keito	5
Tatsuo Sakamoto	5
Shunsuke Oyu	5
Hironao Kunimitsu	4
Shunsuke Sasaki	4
Jun Nishikawa	4
Shogo Kawada	4
Hideto Fujino	4
Makoto Takano	3
Toru Shimada	3
Paul Kuo	3
Fumiaki Koizumi	3
Masaru Sunagawa	3
Yukihiro Yoshida	3
Koya Arikawa	3
Ken Takayama	3
Masanori Sugiyama	3
Kiyoshi Nishikawa	3
Masashige Obara	3
Sotaro Karasawa	3
Yuya Taketani	2
Kazuma Ieiri	2
Shintaro Yamada	2
Kiyoshi Ayabe	2
Shigeru Urushibara	2
Masahiko Inada	2
Masaru Tange	2
Shota Horii	2
Taiga Matsuyama	2
Kazuomi Kaneto	2
Komura Fujio	2
Keisuke Kogure	2
Shintaro Tabata	2
Yuto Nagatomo	2
Yuki Naito	2

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Investor list

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.

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.

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".

Investment focus

Content, Media and Entertainment, Social Media
Seed, Funding Round, Angel
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Plott — Plott producing youtube animation platform under Vision “Become a Content holder from YouTube”. In August 2019, the company name was changed from Fabo to Plott. Plott, the new company name, is derived from the plot that you make before writing novels, etc., and the idea that “I want to make content all the time” is put in the company name.
Now Do — Now Do provides online growth revolution platform.
Neighbor — The creative universe of Fortnite is infinite. To give an example , building fantasy and science fiction worlds, creating simple games and full-scale battle games can all be completed with Fortnite. Is the world of Fortnite, played by 350 million users worldwide, is it real or unreal? We will try to combining the vast world of Fortnite with the real world.

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.

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.

Investment focus

Internet, Software, Content
Seed, Angel, Funding Round
Japan, Hong Kong, United States

Portfolio highlights

For you — For you is a comprehensive Advertising agency business specializing in SNS.
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.
SPORTS CROWN — SPORTS CROWN engages in the development and operation of fantasy sports.

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.

Yasuyuki Kin

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.

Masao Ito is a Founder & CEO at User Local.

Investment focus

Content, Information Technology, Social Media
Seed, Series A, Angel
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Illusil — Illusil is a service that makes it easier for anyone to generate slide materials and reduces the amount of time needed to do it. Additionally, presentations can be automatically generated from text input by AI, and over 1,000 design templates can be used to build original slides.
Aruya Umu — Aryaum supports "regional revitalization through NFT" by offering local governments all around the nation hometown tax and tourism NFT solutions.
Driver Technologies — Driver Technologies is a cloud logistics platform provider. It provides a solution for driver matching and cargo vehicle demands.

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 — 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.

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.

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.

Shuuichi Wada - CTO @ alu Japan

Investment focus

Reservations, Content, Social Media
Seed, Angel, Series A
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Craftie — Craftie is an lesson reservation service.
hackjpn — HACK JPN is a company that transforms imagination into creativity and builds a natural tomorrow.
rocketa — Rocketa is a news curation and social media platform.

Mr. Sugashita joined Polaris as Advisor in May 2011. He is Director and CEO of Sugashita Partners, Ltd since 1998 and provides consulting services to financial institutions and ventures in and outside of Japan. Prior to that position, he was CEO of Lazard Japan Asset Management from 1991 to 1998. His business career also includes positions at DaiwaSecurities and Merrill Lynch Securities, Tokyo Branch. On the academic front, Mr. Sugashita received a BA in Economics from Ritsumeikan University and since 2009 is Special Advisor for the Dean of Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University.

Investment focus

Marketing, Travel, Media and Entertainment
Seed, Series A, Funding Round
Japan

Portfolio highlights

G NEXT — G NEXT is an Information Technology based company.
Fun — Fun is a sightseeing entertainment company that makes the world even more of a fun place.
Tabinaka — Tabinaka is a Japanese booking & reservation platform for overseas tours and travel activities.

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.

Tatsuo Sakamoto is a Head of Sales, Japan at MOLOCO. He Attended The University of Tokyo.

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.

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.

Investment focus

Content, Internet, Media and Entertainment
Seed, Angel, Funding Round
Japan, Singapore, United States

Portfolio highlights

Lecto — Lecto provides Saas solutions to eliminate the tedious practices behind financial services
SPORTS CROWN — SPORTS CROWN engages in the development and operation of fantasy sports.
Neighbor — The creative universe of Fortnite is infinite. To give an example , building fantasy and science fiction worlds, creating simple games and full-scale battle games can all be completed with Fortnite. Is the world of Fortnite, played by 350 million users worldwide, is it real or unreal? We will try to combining the vast world of Fortnite with the real world.

Hironao Kunimitsu was born in Hyogo, Japan. After graduating from Okayama High School, he spent several years traveling around the world. He visited over 30 countries including the US, China, India, Canada, and others in Central and South America.In 1996 he entered Fudan University in China, and then later went on to study at Santa MonicaCollege in the US. In 2004 he entered Atmovie Inc. where he produced movies and televised dramas, and was appointed company director in the same year. In 2007 he founded gumi Inc., and it started listing on first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange in December, 2014.

Investment focus

Virtual Reality, Content, Media and Entertainment
Funding Round, Seed, Angel
Japan, United States

Portfolio highlights

1SEC — 1sec is a virtual influencers in Japan,develop in-house and management. IMPACT to CEKAI in 1 second. Based on the concept of making CEKAI happy in one second, US based in Los Angeles and Japan, based in Tokyo, virtual influencers × AI, fashion & music & The company will develop a number of CEKAI's first and first projects in Japan inthe field of enter teignment.
Gatari — Gatari is developing an AR audio platform, including the AR camera app Vismuth, which can call avatars in reality.
Thirdverse — Thirdverse (formerly known as Yomuneco Inc) is engaged in Virtual Reality content and services planning, development, sales and management.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Makoto Takano is CEO of atomixmedia, inc., publisher and editor-in-chief of Forbes Japan and Rolling Stone Japan since June, 2014. Prior to joining Atomixmedia, Inc., he was Managing Director and President of PIMCO Japan Ltd. Before joining PIMCO in 2001, he was head of marketing at Goldman Sachs Asset Management. Makoto's prior experiencealso includes work at Daiwa Securities where he was head of the strategists team at Daiwa Institute of Research. He has published extensively on the capital markets. In 1992, he was awarded Securities Analysts Journal Prize by the Securities Analyst Association of Japan. He has also given lectures on asset management at Waseda University and Kyoto University. He holds master’s and undergraduate degrees in engineering from Waseda University. Makoto serves as Director of Nippon Finance Association and Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation.

Investment focus

Content, Sports, Apps
Seed, Series A, Series B
Japan, Philippines

Portfolio highlights

BeatFit — BeatFit is a fitness-tech startup based in Japan.
PROGRIT — PROGRIT is an English-related media management company.
Luup — Luup is an Internet Company.

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

Task Management, Manufacturing, Content
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.

Paul Kuo - Director - Board of Directors @ Tamecco

Investment focus

Reservations, Travel, SaaS
Seed, Angel, Series A
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Fun — Fun is a sightseeing entertainment company that makes the world even more of a fun place.
Tabinaka — Tabinaka is a Japanese booking & reservation platform for overseas tours and travel activities.
Fun Group — Hello! We are Fun Group (formally Tabinaka) and we are Japan's first Travel and Leisure startup offering unique tours and experiences. We currently offer experiences in 7 different locations globally.

Fumiaki Koizumi - Executive Director @ Mercari

Investment focus

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

Portfolio highlights

Osiro — Osiro is a community management firm.
Luup — Luup is an Internet Company.
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.

After joining Mitsubishi Corporation, he studied at Harvard Business School. After graduating, he joined Globespan Capital Partners, an independent United States VC, and worked as a director of investment. He started LocationValue after the company's representative in Japan. Joined Google after selling the company to NTT DOCOMO. He served asDirector of Product Development for Google Maps and General Manager for Android. He left Google in February 2018 and started Smartround Co., Ltd. in May.

Investment focus

Artificial Intelligence, SNS, Music
Seed, Angel, Funding Round
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Flyle — Flyle provides a cloud based platform for product management helping customers to improve productivity & creativity in product development.
Sustainable Lab — SusLab is a data bank that uses AI technology to support SDG and ESG development goals and investments.
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.

Yukihiro Yoshida is managing director at POL.

Investment focus

Travel, Reservations, SNS
Seed, Angel
Japan

Portfolio highlights

A10 Lab — A10 Lab is a company that aims to makes people happy with technology that is independent of Sony's new business creation program. It provides Google Play an app that allows users to do things that they have never been able to do with the custom app 'Min Chale' selected for two consecutive years. It is a company that brings profits tocompanies by improving lifetime value (sales) through the habitation of users that companies have.
Tabinaka — Tabinaka is a Japanese booking & reservation platform for overseas tours and travel activities.
Fun Group — Hello! We are Fun Group (formally Tabinaka) and we are Japan's first Travel and Leisure startup offering unique tours and experiences. We currently offer experiences in 7 different locations globally.

Koya Arikawa is the Representative Director and Founder at Hotspring.

Investment focus

Media and Entertainment, Content, SNS
Seed, Angel, Series A
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Tanp — Gracia is an EC business and media business that provides coloring precious moments and enriching human connections.
Syukatsu Labo — Syukatsu Labo is a leading company that solves various problems in an aging society.
Somewhere — Somewhere is engaged in the travel and transportation business.

Ken Takayama - External Audit & Supervisory @ Media Do

Investment focus

Reservations, Travel, Apps
Seed, Angel, Funding Round
Japan

Portfolio highlights

SakeWiz — SakeWiz is an App to enjoy, buy and record sake located in Tokyo
Fun — Fun is a sightseeing entertainment company that makes the world even more of a fun place.
Tabinaka — Tabinaka is a Japanese booking & reservation platform for overseas tours and travel activities.

He graduated from Kansai University in 1988. He was enrolled in Ljoma while he was in college. 2002 Vice President of Practice (now index lights). In 2004, he became president of zappallas. Listed on the TSE Mothers in the second year of his appointment, and in 2010 he was listed in part of the TSE. In 2011 he became the CEO of enish. Listed on apart of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Thereafter, he served as outside directors such as Nikkatsu and JibannetHD.

Investment focus

Software, Internet, Media and Entertainment
Seed, Angel, Series A
Japan

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 .
STUDIO — The easiest and quickest way to build your beautiful portfolio website, landing page or anything. No code. All creative freedom.
STUDIO Japan — STUDIO is a development and operation of the next-generation design tool.

After working at KDD Corporation ï¼ˆCurrently known as KDDI Corporationï¼‰, Kiyoshi Nishikawa next went to work at Arthur D. Little Inc. in the United States, where he became inspired to start his own company. After returning to Japan, he established a Japanese corporation of the worldâ€™s largest Internet company, America On Line, LLC. Later andbased on this experience and the relationships he developed, he founded the first Internet business incubator, NETAGE, Inc. After serving as the President and CEO of NETAGE Group, he later became and still serves as the Chairman of ngi group, inc. Kiyoshi was one of the main entrepreneurs responsible for proposing and realization of â€œShibuya Bit Valley Conceptâ€ and is well known for his various speeches and writings. He is a graduate of the Department of Education at Tokyo University.

Investment focus

News, Social Media, Big Data
Seed, Funding Round, Pre-Seed
Japan, United States

Portfolio highlights

PoliPoli — PoliPoli is a next-generation politics co-creation platform where you can participate like a game. Politicians from all over Japan post their policies in an easy-to-understand manner, and those who sympathize can enjoy working on the "missions" necessary to realize the policies.
Astroscale — Astroscale is the first private company with a vision to secure the safe and sustainable development of space for the benefit of future generations, and the only company solely dedicated to on-orbit servicing across all orbits.
TECHFUND — TechFund is a venture capital firm specializing in incubation and seed stage investments. The company is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan.

Masashige Obara

Investment focus

E-Learning, Education, SNS
Seed, Funding Round
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Lang-8 — Lang-8 is the best place for learning and practicing foreign languages. Post an entry in the language you are learning, then a native speaker will correct your entries. Currently there are more than 80 languages available on Lang-8.
LanCul — LanCul is an education based start up.
TIGALA — TIGALA is deployed M & A services

Sotaro Karasawa - Chief Technology Officer @ STAR FESTIVAL

Investment focus

Software, Blockchain, Art
Seed, Pre-Seed, Series B
Japan

Portfolio highlights

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.
Atmoph — A smart digital window that opens to beautiful scenery from around the world. By simply putting it on your desk or hanging it on the wall, Atmoph Window will open up a whole new world before you.
Cloudbase — Cloudbase is an information technology company that specializes in the fields of cloud services and management.

Yuya Taketani - Chief Executive Officer @ Gunosy

Investment focus

Apps, News, Mobile
Seed
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Gunosy — Gunosy is a news curation application that covers a wide range of news from entertainment news to political news. The application finds its news from multiple web sources and presents them according to how hot the topic is. Gunosy’s features include categorized tabs; the ability to customize the categories that users need to follow and create theirown personal magazine; instant access to a wide variety of news; and push notifications to remind users of news updates.The company was founded in 2012 and is headquartered in Japan.
Telescope Japan — Telescope Japan Internet Company

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.

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.

Kiyoshi Ayabe is the President and Founder of KIYO Learning.

Investment focus

Content, Education, E-Learning
Funding Round
Japan

Portfolio highlights

KIYO Learning — KIYO Learning offers a commuting course, an online course to acquire qualifications for business people.

Shigeru Urushibara - President & CEO @ UL Systems

Investment focus

Artificial Intelligence, Task Management, Social Media
Series A, Seed, Angel
Japan

Portfolio highlights

EmbodyMe — Making the unimaginable, imaginable with AI
SPACE WALKER — SPACE WALKER specializes in design, manufacture and sale of peripheral components.
SingulaNet Ltd — SingulaNet Ltd provides a total solution using cutting-edge blockchain services.

Masahiko Inada is the Venture Advisor at DNX Ventures. He was Founder and Chairman at Kabuku Inc. He attended The University of Tokyo.

Investment focus

SNS, Content, Finance
Angel, Seed
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Theoria — Theoria is a marketing team that brings together practical knowledge.
Recipio Japan — Recipio is a service that can suggest recipes just by entering ingredients the user already has at home. The app can also refine suggestions based on the user's mood, the occasion, and how many people the user is eating with, and more.
Theoria Japan — Theoria Japan is a specialized Q & A service.

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.

Investment focus

Internet, E-Commerce, SaaS
Seed, Series A
Japan, United States

Portfolio highlights

Timee — Timee is a Planning, development and management of Internet media company.
Smart Shopping — 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.

Shota Horii

Investment focus

Information Technology, Internet, Art
Seed, Funding Round
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Flatt Security — Flatt Security is a cyber security company for all developers.
Lecto — Lecto provides Saas solutions to eliminate the tedious practices behind financial services
UNDEFINED Japan — UNDEFINED is a very young team with an average age of about 20 years.We develop products for teenagers who make the most of their youth by working closely with users.

Taiga Matsuyama graduated form Waseda University, Matsuyama has been engaged in venture company support for more than ten years in Tokyo, after experience as a consultant at Accenture.Matsuyama became one of the board member of NetAge, Inc (IPO 2006), start-up incubator known by having invested in MIXI – Japanese top SNS and support severalstart-up companies.He also has contributed to the activity for create the start-up eco-system in Tokyo through the NPO Organization BVA (Bit Valley Association). Currently he has established Kronos Fund with angel investors, venture capital fund for investment in emerging early-stage companies.Kronos Fund has invested in more than 20 companies.

Investment focus

Software, Artificial Intelligence, Telecommunications
Seed, Angel, Series A
Japan, United States

Portfolio highlights

Shippo — Shippo is the best multi-carrier shipping software for e-commerce businesses. Find the best shipping rates, integrate with e-commerce platforms, print shipping labels, track package delivery, and verify addresses with either our shipping API or web app.
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.
Spectra Japan — Spectra is a Provision of services for artists and fans company.

Kazuomi Kaneto is the Founder & CEO of Dream Project Incubators. He previously worked at Pacifico Energy as a Founder, President & CEO. Kazuomi Kaneto attended Tsinghua University.

Investment focus

Artificial Intelligence, Music, Energy
Funding Round, Seed, Series B
Japan, United States

Portfolio highlights

Sustainable Lab — SusLab is a data bank that uses AI technology to support SDG and ESG development goals and investments.
SOUNDRAW — Your personal AI music generator.
Persistent Energy Partners — Africa's Climate Venture Builder - We believe in the power of climate-positive economic development in Africa. For the last decade, we have been working hand in hand with exceptional entrepreneurs, investing both financial and human capital to build successful climate ventures on the continent. Our companies offer competitive financial returns required to drive lasting impact.

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.

Mr. Keisuke Kogure serves as general partner at Mint.

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.
MOVeLOT — MOVeLOT is an AI company that provides skeletal platform and robot planning, development, and production services.
MoonJapan — MoonJapan is an educational impact startup that offers a variety of programs and thorough assistance.

Shintaro Tabata - Senior Vice President and Head of Corporate Sales @ Line

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.

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 —

Yuki Naito - CEO,President @ Drecom

Investment focus

Manufacturing, Internet, SNS
Seed, Pre-Seed, Series B
Japan

Portfolio highlights

1SEC — 1sec is a virtual influencers in Japan,develop in-house and management. IMPACT to CEKAI in 1 second. Based on the concept of making CEKAI happy in one second, US based in Los Angeles and Japan, based in Tokyo, virtual influencers × AI, fashion & music & The company will develop a number of CEKAI's first and first projects in Japan inthe field of enter teignment.
Fools — Fools is a footwear manufacturing company.
Interstellar Technologies Japan — Interstellar Technologies is a rocket development, manufacturing and launch service.

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Artificial intelligence