Shintaro Yamada
Director / Founder @ Mercari
Tokyo, Japan
Shintaro Yamada is a seed investor at Mercari in Tokyo focused on Internet and Finance. 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.
- Total investments:
- 18
- Last investment:
- Lead investor:
- 0%
Last updated:
For AI agents: llms.txt
Industries Shintaro Yamada invests in
Stages Shintaro Yamada invests in
Countries Shintaro Yamada invests in
Round sizes
Round size
- Seed
- $2M–$28M
- Angel
- $320k–$3.7M
- Pre-Seed
- $510k–$4.9M
Investment Focus
Industry
- Internet 7 (39%)
- Finance 4 (22%)
- Content 2 (11%)
- Hospitality 2 (11%)
- Marketplace 2 (11%)
Stage
- Seed 6 (33%)
- Angel 4 (22%)
- Pre-Seed 3 (17%)
- Funding Round 3 (17%)
- Venture - Series Unknown 1 (6%)
Country
- Japan 8 (44%)
- United States 5 (28%)
- Kenya 1 (6%)
Investments
| Company | Description | Round | Links |
|---|---|---|---|
AssetHub
|
AssetHub is an AI-powered 3D modeling tool that enables game developers to create and edit 3D assets 100 times faster, enabling mass production of content and combining AI with manual work, enabling faster prototyping and editing. | $2M / Seed / Aug 01, 2025 | |
Peach Cars
|
Peach Cars building a solution for those looking to buy and sell vehicles whole information on vehicles and hassle-free transactions. | $5M / Seed / Jun 15, 2023 | |
AnotherBall
|
AnotherBall is a blockchain startup that combines entertainment and blockchain. | $2.2M / Angel / May 16, 2023 | |
Zypsy
|
Zypsy is an award-winning design team for founders. Providing brand, product, engineering execution, and investments, where design can unlock outsized outcomes. The company’s vision is to design tomorrow’s most valuable companies with today’s most exceptional people..The founding team brings experience from IDEO, Meta, Fantasy, Microsoft, andSaatchi & Saatchi. Since its inception, Zypsy has collaborated with over 40 startups and launched more than 40 new ideas to market; clients collectively report more than $2B in valuation gains.In 2023, Zypsy introduced Design Capital, an investment program that exchanges intensive design services-for-equity (8–10 weeks, up to ~$100k). Zypsy also manages Zypsy Capital, its venture fund that invests cash in founders, with design support available on a “hands-if” basis—hands-on when useful, hands-off when not. | $3M / Venture - Series Unknown / Jan 01, 2023 | |
Autify
|
Autify is an AI-focused company that offers software testing solutions to address the challenges associated with automation testing. The company's flagship product, Autify No Code, empowers anyone to create automated end-to-end tests for their applications. Additionally, Autify's new product, Zenes, aims to simplify the process ofcreating new software tests through AI, allowing customers to work directly with the company's AI agent to generate tests from product documents. | $510K / Pre-Seed / Jul 31, 2017 | |
Progate
|
Progate is a service that you can learn programming online. | $14.2M / Feb 15, 2017 | |
|
Progate
|
Progate is a service that you can learn programming online. | $14.2M / Seed / Feb 15, 2017 | |
HOMMA
|
HOMMA is a start-up tech home builder that specializes in designing modern homes that improve the living experience. The team at HOMMA is composed of skilled professionals, including home builders, architects, designers, and engineers, all working to create living spaces that are aesthetically pleasing and sustainable. | $4.9M / Seed / Oct 24, 2016 | |
|
Startouts
|
Startouts is a Planning,development and operation of Internet services. | Jul 29, 2016 | |
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. | $283K / Jun 14, 2016 | |
| See all 18 investments → | |||
Co-Investors
About Mercari
Mercari aims to provide a solution by enabling people to easily sell and purchase second-hand items in a mobile marketplace with their smartphones. Japan’s mobile shopping obsession is finally in the US. Mercari, the resale shopping app, is the country’s biggest community-powered shopping fair in the palm of your hands. The intuitive app lets youbuy and sell anything, from anywhere, in seconds from your phone: fashion, electronics, jewelry, console games, new, pre-owned and hand-made items, Mercari delivers. Listing your item is as simple as uploading a photo and adding a few details, with built-in features that help you easily print out shipping labels and quickly drop packages in the mail. Mercari’s sharing community grows larger and makes the world more sustainable every day.
Mercari Contacts
| Name | Phone | Socials | |
|---|---|---|---|
John Lagerling
Director and CBO
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Shintaro Yamada
Director / Founder
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Tatsuya Tsuruoka
Principal Software Engineer
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Tomokaz Saito
Corporate Legal Manager
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Daisaku Harada
Executive Officer of Souzoh Inc.
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FAQ
What does Shintaro Yamada invest in?
Shintaro Yamada invests primarily in Internet, Finance and Content startups, most often at Seed and Angel stage. Most of the 18 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in Japan. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.
What is Shintaro Yamada's check size?
Shintaro Yamada typically joins rounds of $2M–$28M at Seed, $320k–$3.7M at Angel and $510k–$4.9M at Pre-Seed. These ranges are 10th–90th percentile round sizes calculated from confirmed public funding rounds, so they are a realistic guide to the rounds Shintaro Yamada participates in.
When did Shintaro Yamada last invest?
The most recent investment recorded for Shintaro Yamada closed in Aug 2025. Shizune tracks 18 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 Aug 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.
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