Top 10 Photography Startup Investors in Japan

Last updated: Apr 2024 A list of 10 angel investors and VC funds that invest in Photography startups based in Japan. We rank investors based on the number of investments they made in Photography companies from Japan. We update this investor list every month.

Top 10 Photography Startup Investors in Japan

Investor	Photography Japan investments
ANOBAKA	2
Nippon Venture Capital	1
STRIVE	1
Kazuhiro Ishikura	1
Kenji Endo	1
Ryosuke Matsumoto	1
Showa Leasing	1
Monex Ventures	1
Gakken Plus Japan	1
Mercari	1

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Investor list

ANOBAKA is a Tokyo-based venture capital firm with rich group resources to add value to seed-stage startups. ANOBAKA actively invests in and supports startups aiming to be a global leader in the innovative Internet business and promising to greatly grow up in the future. ANOBAKA's investment focuses on fledgling seed-stage startups. Inaddition to investment financing, ANOBAKA provides founders with a variety of business support such as development consulting by our engineers, sales support, and international marketing support.

Investment focus

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

Portfolio highlights

3S — 3S is a SaaS developer platform that provides and operates 24-hour home nursing care services through technology.
MOVeLOT — MOVeLOT is an AI company that provides skeletal platform and robot planning, development, and production services.
Fotographer AI — Fotographer.ai is a service that allows e-commerce companies and individuals interested in advertising creatives to generate product photos automatically for use on their websites and in marketing. Product photos for websites and commercials that need to be taken for each campaign or season can be generated using generative AI.

Nippon Venture Capital ("NVCC"), established in 1996 as one of the few largest Japanese independent venture capital firms, is destined to undertake the unprecedented task of providing full-range venture capital services in cooperation with major Japanese business leaders and leading companies, which have supported and nurtured various newbusinesses on their own, as well as proactively developing new venture enterprises.

Investment focus

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

Portfolio highlights

Issues — Issues provides development and management of web service issues that solve the problems.
Trustart — Trustart engages in real estate research business and real estate big data provision. The company offers real estate big data and big data subscriptions.
LIFESCAPES — LIFESCAPES is a research and manufacturer of brain-computer interface equipment.

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

Investment focus

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

Portfolio highlights

Showroom B2B — SHOWROOM B2B is building the largest B2B “Phygital” platform for India’s $108 Bn fashion industry by connecting Tier 2+ clothing retailers directly with small to mid-scale apparel manufacturers and providing all parties with solutions for distribution, credit, logistics, and marketing.Showroom works on “Touch & Feel” mode of selling where itsunique distribution model ensures that there is almost NO RETURN of products sold. It creates Experience Centres for its retailers which gives them the confidence to buy without any iota of doubt about product quality.Showroom's offerings = Better Margins for Clothing Retailers + Aggressive Growth for Clothing Manufacturers
Testsigma — Powerful cloud-based test automation platform that lets you automate tests for web, mobile, desktop apps, and APIs in minutes. Sign up now!
Mercado Único — Mercado Único is a B2B platform for the distribution and management of opportunistic sales of Consumer Goods that are close to expiration and slow-moving, connecting suppliers (manufacturers/distributors) to buyers (retailers/distributors) with items that have predictable and immediate use at discounted prices.

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

Investment focus

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

Portfolio highlights

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

Kenji Endo - Director @ Japan Business Systems

Investment focus

Apps, Fitness, Internet
Seed, Angel
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Pixta — Pixta company’s goal is to assist graphic professionals in the transfer, tracking and collaboration of digital media over the Internet. We build Internet “Cloud”-based applications that provide a great customer experience, easy-to-use, secure and reliable.To assist our customers in transferring large-files simply and securely across the Internet,we built PixtaSynapse. Using PixtaSynapse, the sender needs only a web-browser to send files. To make the service super-reliable, we built the servers and core-technology for our custom file processing pipeline. We then located those key-servers one-hop off the Internet backbone to reduce latency. Our core file pipeline is physically located in a secure Class A co-location facility. We have setup secure, automated, off-site backups to safeguard our customers data in case of a catastrophic emergency.
HANOWA — HANAWA is a matching platform between freelance dental hygienists and dental clinics.
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.

Ryosuke Matsumoto is the founder and CEO of Community Factory Inc.Ryosuke is born in Kanagawa Prefecture in 1981. He joined launching of the publication venture company, and ran a cafe while he was attending Chuo University in Tokyo. Since he joined launching the social media venture company in 2004, he has been in social media business. In2006, Ryosuke founded Community Factory Inc. which specialized in planning and operating social media and blog services.Community Factory started to specialize in social application for mobile from 2009, and Community Factory draw investments of around 4.5 million US dollars from venture capitals and mixi inc. then the biggest social media in Japan. DECOPIC, Community Factory's one of the apps for smartphone, has been downloaded 6 million times in the 6 months since its release, and it is rapidly gaining users mainly in Asian countries.In Sep 2012, Ryosuke and other stock holders sold Community Factory to Yahoo Japan Corp., and he remains as CEO of Community Factory.

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.

Showa Leasing engages in the leasing of machine tools, construction machinery, medical equipment, and commercial equipment. The company was founded on April 2, 1969 and its headquarters are located in Chuo-ku, Tokyo.

Investment focus

Printing, Publishing, Photography
Series A
Japan

Portfolio highlights

CAMELOVE — Cameloveis a Camera equipment rental subscription service.

Monex Ventures is a venture capital firm based in Japan that finances seed and early stage investments in startup companies.

Investment focus

Software, Financial Services, Information Technology
Seed, Series A, Funding Round
Japan, United States, China

Portfolio highlights

Degas — Degas develops solutions to improve the productivity of small-scale farmers in Africa.
pickupon — Pickupon is a company that transcribes important parts of the call
MoneyDuck — MoneyDuck - Making Smart Financial Decision

Gakken Plus is a publishing business offering a catalog of books and magazines.

Investment focus

Art, EdTech, Robotics
Seed, Pre-Seed, Series A
Japan, United States

Portfolio highlights

OurPhoto — OurPhoto is a service that matches clients and photographers. Professional and semi-professional shooting is surprisingly high quality and reasonable.
MiRaY School — MiRaY School is an Education based company that service Gifte (! Kifte) is a service that offers a learning experience for the future of children and children.
GranSky Studios — GranSky Studios makes good stories as well as animations which all ages can enjoy. GranSky Studios brings light of dream and hope to people worldwide through our production.

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