James Riney
Founding Partner & CEO @ Coral Capital
Tokyo, Japan
James Riney is a seed investor at Coral Capital in Tokyo focused on SaaS and Software. James Riney is the Founding Partner and CEO of Coral Capital and a Partner a t500 Startups. Prior to launching Coral Capital, James was a co-founder and head of 500 Startups Japan. With about $100m under management, he’s been a seed investor in over 40 companies. He is also a Board Director at SmartHR, where he was an early investor and led their ~$14m Series B. Prior to 500 Startups, James covered early-stage investments for DeNA’s venture arm, focusing on Silicon Valley and Asia. He has listed on the Forbes Asia 30 Under 30 list for Finance and Venture Capital in 2016. Before investing, he was the founding CEO of ResuPress (now Coincheck, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in Japan), and the creator of STORYS.JP, the “Medium.com of Japan.” In another life, he worked at J.P. Morgan in New York and Tokyo. He grew up in Japan and speaks fluent Japanese. James attended Penn State University and The American School in Japan.
- Total investments:
- 35
- Last investment:
- Lead investor:
- 26%
Last updated:
For AI agents: llms.txt
Industries James Riney invests in
Stages James Riney invests in
Countries James Riney invests in
Round sizes
Contacts
| Type | Contact | Validation |
|---|---|---|
| Work email | ||
| Personal email | ||
| Work phone | ||
| Personal phone | ||
| Socials |
Round size
- Seed
- $940k–$16M
- Series A
- $2.7M–$99M
- Series B
- $3.3M–$184M
Investment Focus
Industry
- SaaS 5 (14%)
- Software 5 (14%)
- Human Resources 3 (9%)
- Cloud Data Services 3 (9%)
- Information Technology 3 (9%)
Stage
- Seed 11 (31%)
- Series A 8 (23%)
- Series B 8 (23%)
- Series C 1 (3%)
- Series D 1 (3%)
Country
- Japan 20 (57%)
- United States 2 (6%)
Investments
| Company | Description | Round | Links |
|---|---|---|---|
| DeltaForesight is a business that creates B2B services and goods with a focus on stablecoins and cryptocurrencies. In order to develop solutions that may be applied in Japan, it emphasizes bridging laws, business practices, and technological advancements. | $2.1M / Seed / Sep 25, 2026 | ||
| Facilo is a real estate communication provider that uses cloud computing to enhance sales and ease transactions of real estate brokerage. | $25M / Series B / Sep 17, 2026 | ||
| Oceanic Constellations empowers ocean visualization with a network of autonomous surface drones and advanced marine monitoring technology. | $13.1M / Series B / Feb 12, 2026 | ||
| SmartHR provides a cloud-native human resources management platform that offers a suite of tech-enabled human resources management solutions, focusing on employee management and administration, growth, talent management, and employee productivity. Through its comprehensive range of solutions, SmartHR serves a diversified spectrum of businessesincluding large enterprises and SMEs. | $96M / Secondary Market / Nov 18, 2025 | ||
| Ivry offers cloud based telephonic answering service. | $26.2M / Series D / Nov 06, 2025 | ||
| NutmegLabs takes care of tourism and leisure by helping with online booking and digitizing the business. It was founded in 2019 and is based in San Francisco, California, United States. | $3.3M / Series B / Feb 27, 2025 | ||
| HQ offers next-generation employee benefits platform. | $13.1M / Series B / Dec 12, 2024 | ||
| Hq is a consutling firm that works in the area of personnel organization strategy, working style office strategy and software development. | Series B / Dec 12, 2024 | ||
| STRACT is a web platform that provides online platform, dating app, knowledge sharing cloud platform, and casual entertainment services. | $6.6M / Series A / Nov 20, 2024 | ||
| Nstock is specialized in developing SAAS based applications for ecosystem. | $21M / Seed / Sep 09, 2024 | ||
| See all 35 investments → | |||
Co-Investors
About Coral Capital
Coral Capital is a seed stage venture capital firm in Japan.
Coral Capital Contacts
| Name | Phone | Socials | |
|---|---|---|---|
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James Riney
Founding Partner & CEO
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Yohei Sawayama
Founding Partner
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Kiyoshi Seko
Investment Manager
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Miyako Yoshizawa
Senior Associate
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FAQ
What does James Riney invest in?
James Riney invests primarily in SaaS, Software and Human Resources startups, most often at Seed and Series A stage. Most of the 35 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in Japan. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.
What round sizes does James Riney invest in?
James Riney typically joins rounds of $940k–$16M at Seed, $2.7M–$99M at Series A and $3.3M–$184M at Series B. These are whole funding-round sizes, not James Riney's own check, which is rarely disclosed: the 10th–90th percentile of the confirmed public funding rounds James Riney took part in.
How do I contact James Riney?
Public channels for James Riney include LinkedIn, X (Twitter) and the website linked on this profile. For a verified work email and phone number, create a free Shizune account — contact data is searched across 20+ sources and validated before delivery, so your outreach lands in the right inbox.
When did James Riney last invest?
The most recent investment recorded for James Riney closed in Sep 2026. Shizune tracks 35 investments in total for this profile, including round sizes, stages and portfolio companies, all sourced from confirmed public funding rounds and refreshed monthly.
Is Shizune's investor data accurate?
Yes — every stat on this profile is calculated from confirmed public funding rounds monitored across hundreds of sources since 2020. This profile was last refreshed in Oct 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.
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