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Top 50 Restaurants Startup Investors in Japan in January 2025

Last updated: Jan 2025 A list of 50 angel investors and VC (Venture Capital) funds that invest in Restaurants startups based in Japan. We rank investors based on the number of investments they made in Restaurants companies from Japan. We update this investor list every month.

Top 50 Restaurants Startup Investors in Japan in January 2025

Investor	Restaurants Japan investments
Kemuri Ventures	3
East Ventures	2
Sansei Capital Investment	2
Ceres	2
Femto Partners	2
YJ Capital	2
Vector	2
Kotaro Chiba	2
Yusuke Tanaka	2
Kotaro Chiba	2
iSGS Investment Works	2
Venture United	2
Komura Fujio	2
Freebank	2
SLD Entertainment	1
Scrum Ventures	1
The Seed Capital	1
Okinawa Development Finance Corporation	1
Allied Architects	1
PR Times	1
Shintaro Yamada	1
Monex Ventures	1
ANRI	1
Adways	1
Accord Ventures	1
Fujita Kanko	1
DD Holdings Venture Capital	1
Coral Capital	1
Osaka University Venture Capital	1
500 Startups Japan	1
Nishio Kentaro	1
JTB Corp.	1
XTech Ventures	1
SMBC Venture Capital	1
VELTRA	1
Nobuhiro Ariyasu	1
Mitsubishi UFJ Capital	1
NES Venture Capital	1
MTG Ventures	1
Computer Software Association of Japan	1
Orient Corporation	1
VOYAGE VENTURES	1
giftee	1
Colopl Next	1
Winroader	1
SUKOYAKA HOLDINGS	1
Nissay Capital	1
Noguchi Keito	1
Coconala Skill Partners	1
iMercury Capital	1

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Investor list

Kemuri Ventures is a Japanese venture capital firm.

Investment focus

Food Processing, Food and Beverage, Agriculture
Series A, Seed, Funding Round
Japan

Portfolio highlights

AlgaleX — AlgaleX is a firm that utilizes discarded food waste to create ingredients such as plant-based proteins.
HarvestX — HarvestX manufactures fully automatic robots which contributes to the shortage of agricultural human resources and stable food production
Quantum Flowers & Foods — Quantum Flowers & Foods is a technology firm that develops and creates agricultural business models and technologies.

East Ventures is an early stage venture capital (VC) focused on Southeast Asia, Indonesia & Japan. Success cases include Tokopedia, Traveloka, and Mercari.

Investment focus

Software, Information Technology, E-Commerce
Seed, Series A, Funding Round
Japan, Indonesia, Singapore

Portfolio highlights

SoLeLands — SoLeLands provides children with future-ready skills, virtues, and applied competences and inspires children to love learning.
Maka Motors — MAKA is dedicated to building the best electric motorcycles for Indonesian riders.
Zenith Learning Group — Zenith Learning Group's mission is to deliver a holistic, world-class education to learners across South East Asia through technology.

Sansei Capital provides portfolio management, corporate management support, and financing services.

Investment focus

Content, Medical, Task Management
Funding Round, Series A, Series B
Japan, China, Belgium

Portfolio highlights

RABO — RABO is a Cat-Tech Company that "watches cat life with technology.
MICOLY — MICOLY is a operator of a website aimed at publishing and selling creative video lessons. The company hosts lectures that are presented by the creators of all categories who are keen on sharing their techniques and philosophies in areas of nail art, Japanese calligraphy, flower arrangement, knitting and many more, as well as interacting with theirpassionate fans, enabling users to take creative lessons and start a new hobby.
Asoview — ASOVIEW Inc. is an online booking website that provides booking services for weekend leisure activities like skydiving and rafting. The company was founded in 2011 and is based in Shibuya, Kanagawa.

Ceres is a company providing internet marketing services and is engaged in the planning, development, and operation of smartphone media.

Investment focus

Cryptocurrency, Content, Internet
Funding Round, Seed, Corporate Round
Japan

Portfolio highlights

DINETTE — DINETTE is a cosmetics manufacturing company.
SOUNDRAW — Your personal AI music generator.
Indent — Indent creates products that help writers create original works such as novels, manga, screenplays, and game scenarios. They will work to create an environment in which artists can focus on their creations and enjoy sharing their work.

The fund will invest in early-stage venture companies in the Internet sector, which are engaged in platform businesses and financial services. The amount of per-company equity investment will be in the range of between ¥10 million ($.098 million) and ¥300 million ($2.95 million). The fund is also characterized by the practical support for growingcompanies that will be provided by Mr. Isozaki. Shinsei Bank will dispatch personnel to the fund in order to jointly assist Mr. Isozaki in order to source venture companies and maximize their corporate value.

Investment focus

Internet, Communities, Location Based Services
Funding Round, Seed, Series B
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Ivry — Ivry offers cloud based telephonic answering service.
YOUTRUST — YOUTRUST is a startup to operate YOUTRUST a referral recruitment platform for side-job change.
Leading Mark — Leading Mark, a rising human resources startup in Japan. Leading Mark is branching out into mid-career and international hiring. It currently has a one-man team in China working to bring the top Japanese-speaking Chinese students to domestic companies. He also touts his startup’s focus on the average job seeker. “We want to make sure that the usersget the info that he or she needs the most,” he says. Large scale, legacy players can sometimes prioritize the needs of the hiring company, and their commission, over the needs of applicants themselves. This leads to frustration and short-circuited careers.

YJ Capital is a Corporate Venture Capital of Yahoo Japan. Our value is to help global minded entrepreneurs build successful and lasting internet companies. We invest in all stages, all sectors in Asia, US and Israel.YJ Capital has a unique access to Yahoo Japan's operational experience and unparalleled Japan market entry support. Oursole LP allows us to focus only on our portfolio companies and make fast decision making.

Investment focus

Software, Information Technology, Internet
Funding Round, Series A, Seed
Japan, United States, Indonesia

Portfolio highlights

Brhino — Brhino provides planning, development, and management of web services. The company's product, Monokabu, is a site where people can buy and sell sneakers and things like stock. Brhino is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan.
LEAN BODY — Lean Body is an online platform for fitness videos.
Stacked — Watch videos with your people on Stacked.com

Vector is a Japan-based PR agency that provides PR planning and implementation services for its clients. The agency also offers other services covering areas such as management, finance, accounting, human resources, administration, internal controls, and audits. Vector was founded in 1993.

Investment focus

Software, Marketing, Media and Entertainment
Funding Round, Seed, Corporate Round
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Wewill — Wewill is a consulting company that provides accounting, SaaS, business development, and business consulting services.
NEL — NEL is a creative agency that offers a platform that connects brands and customers through purchases and SNS posts.
Aplaca.Lab — Aplaca.Lab is a driver substitution platform that provides an unprecedented new driving experience. They released a driving agency application for providing comfortable driving experiences. It enables driving agencies to optimize their resources and clients' safety, prevent accidents, and receive assistance in areas with limited transportationoptions.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

iSGS Investment Works is Japan-based venture capital firm.

Investment focus

Software, E-Commerce, Information Technology
Seed, Funding Round, Series A
Japan, United States, Hong Kong

Portfolio highlights

SOUNDRAW — Your personal AI music generator.
Inter — Inter delivers solutions for global difficulties using vacuum technology, which uses a particular check valve to maintain a 99.5% vacuum rate.
Better Place — Better place vision is to create a world in which kind people can continue to be kind, as well as a society in which people can work in their own way without worrying about money.

Venture United is a provider of venture capital for entrepreneurs, especially for internet-related businesses.

Investment focus

Software, Travel, Content
Seed, Funding Round, Series A
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Zest — ZEST is an IT firm that offers consulting and management support services to its clients. It is based in Tokyo.
FamiOne — FamiOne is creating a society that will support the future of couples who want to receive children.
Meetcareer — Meetcareer provides online counseling services for career planning.

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.

Freebank provides funds, supports, and develops venture business managers with the aim of moving forward with the next decade. The company was founded in 2013 and is headquartered in Japan.

Investment focus

CRM, IT Management, Video Conferencing
Funding Round, Seed, Series A
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Thinca — Thinca is an IT system planning, development, and operations company that provides a cloud-based CTI (Computer Telephony Integration) hospitality & communication solution for corporate offices.
QD Laser, Inc. — QD Laser offers semiconductor lasers such as quantum dot lasers for silicon photonics, and retinal projectors as well. From Japan to the world.
Digital Cruise — Digital Cruise Provides cloud services for video distribution and digital signage.

SLD Entertainment operates and manages cafes and restaurants under "kawara CAFE＆DINING" brand.

Investment focus

Content, Ethereum, Marketing
Series A
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.

Scrum Ventures is an early-stage venture firm that has invested in over 80 startups across a range of industries in the U.S. and Japan. Based in San Francisco with extensive experience and networks in both Silicon Valley and Japan, Scrum Ventures accelerates portfolio companies with global opportunities. Scrum Studios is reinventing the traditional accelerator -- taking a stage-agnostic approach in connecting best-in-class startups with leading Japanese corporations.

Investment focus

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

Portfolio highlights

Habitto — Habitto by SJ Mobile Labs is a new financial services venture focused on the Japanese market. The team and its advisors have a breadth of experience ranging from insurance, banking, e-commerce, adtech and ventures across five continents. This provides them with a unique approach to entering new markets and building valuable businesses.
Ozlo Sleep — Ozlo Sleep is a science-driven sleep and audio technology company that supports and simplifies sleep rituals for clinical benefits, without the use of medication.
DHARMA — DHARMA empowers iconic people and brands to create and sell travel experiences.

The Seed Capital is a Japan-based venture capital firm.

Investment focus

Audio, Architecture, Information Technology
Seed, Angel, Series A
Japan, Singapore

Portfolio highlights

FiT — FiT encourages the use of information technology in fitness to address industrial concerns. We will build a highly sustainable fitness facility using a business model that allows consumers to easily use the gym without being burdened by price or procedures, while also allowing owners to build a very successful business with low running costs.
AGRI SMILE — AGRI SMILE is a platform that focuses on sharing agricultural technology.
AI Communis — Automatic Speech Recognition, NLP, SaaS

Okinawa Development Finance Corporation provides policy-based financial services.

Investment focus

Apps, Medical, Nursing and Residential Care
Seed, Funding Round, Series A
Japan

Portfolio highlights

LiLz — LiLz is an IT technology network for businesses looking to use AI and IoT to offer new services and value.
Aplaca.Lab — Aplaca.Lab is a driver substitution platform that provides an unprecedented new driving experience. They released a driving agency application for providing comfortable driving experiences. It enables driving agencies to optimize their resources and clients' safety, prevent accidents, and receive assistance in areas with limited transportationoptions.
Swivel — Swivel's mission is to create the fishing brand.

Allied Architects vision comes from the combination of two key aspirations being the leading company in their industry and being entrepreneurial at the same time. They not only aspire to be the finest provider of high quality service and to contribute to society, but they are also hungry to continually take on challenges with entrepreneurial driveand spirit.This is because they believe in connecting individuals and businesses together through social media and technology, with a view to enriching their society.The rise of social media has given new power to individuals to express their own personality through dialogue, and by developing a network of contacts on the internet it has dramatically improved the ease communication. Furthermore, businesses can now connect with their existing and prospective customers more easily through official social media accounts. In previous generations, small shops and businesses dealt directly with their customers. This brought people together, with close and direct connection being necessary to ensure complete customer satisfaction. Even though it helped to build strong relationships in the community, it did not go any further.However, the advancement of technology and the emergence of social media has broken down boundaries and upended traditional hierarchies that previously may have constrained the flow of transactions between individuals and businesses around the world. Businesses can now achieve various objectives, such as reducing the time and cost and for disseminating information, having essential communications, pursuing research and development through consumer dialogue and preventing marketing mistakes. This can result in a much more successful and profitable organization and being profitable enables businesses to develop prospective products and services in harmony with consumer needs, and to provide services of high value for a lower price. It means that consumers can purchase good products and services for a low price, creating a win-win relationship between individuals and businesses.

Investment focus

Content, Database, Internet
Funding Round, Series A
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Omatsuri Japan — Omatsuri is Japan's first festival company specializing in Japan.We provide planning, management, promotion, and customer support for festival organizers from local governments to store associations.
Pocket Concierge — Pocket Concierge is an online service for people to make online reservations at selected restaurants. The company's mission is to broadcast Japanese culinary culture worldwide and provide guests with exclusive dining experience.
Conversion Technology Japan — Conversion Technology is a Data and Tachonology Based company

Boasts more than two million monthly PV, share NO.1 of press release distribution listing services. Including monthly 100 million PV or more of the leading newspaper and communications company Web site, Japan's leading media functions that can be posted to the release to the features. The Facebook fan number of PR TIMES 4 million people morethan, followers number of Twitter accounts has become a 10 006 thousand people than, it is also effective in information diffusion in SNS.

Investment focus

News, Travel, Database
Series A, Funding Round
Japan

Portfolio highlights

byFood.com — Food tours, cooking classes, dining experiences & tastings in Japan. Enjoy a meal in Japan and help children around the world thr
Tablecross — Tablecross is a Marketing consulting business for restaurants.
The Bridge — Tech and Startup News from Japan

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.

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

ANRI is a Japanese venture capital firm that mainly invests in seed and early-stage startups.

Investment focus

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

Portfolio highlights

Sukidayo — Sukidayo is a startup company that offers social services related to family and workshops for individuals, companies, and governments.
ARCH — ARCH provides research, development, operation, and support systems for gynecology and fertility treatment solutions
Tanp — Gracia is an EC business and media business that provides coloring precious moments and enriching human connections.

Based in Tokyo, Adways is a mobile marketing solution provider mostly known for its Asia’s largest mobile CPI adnetwork “AppDriver” and mobile app measurement & tracking tool “PartyTrack” used by great number of major app developers around the world. Since 2004 when it opened the first overseas office in China, Adways has been aggressivelyexpanding its mobile app distribution network in Asian markets. Now with 1,000 employees in 11 countries (Japan, China, Korea, Taiwan, India, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore and the USA), Adways supports app developers worldwide to maximize their user acquisition and monetization and furthermore thrives to provide new value to the market. Haruhisa Okamura is Founder and CEO of Adways who has grown Adways from a small startup to an international corporation with over a thousand employees around the world. In 2006, Adways went public and Okamura was one of the youngest entrepreneurs to list a company in Japan at that time.You can read his story here: "How a high school dropout became a multi-millionaire entrepreneur" http://www.techinasia.com/high-school-dropout-multimillionaire-entrepreneur/

Investment focus

Internet, Media and Entertainment, Software
Funding Round, Seed, Series A
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Brhino — Brhino provides planning, development, and management of web services. The company's product, Monokabu, is a site where people can buy and sell sneakers and things like stock. Brhino is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan.
MICOLY — MICOLY is a operator of a website aimed at publishing and selling creative video lessons. The company hosts lectures that are presented by the creators of all categories who are keen on sharing their techniques and philosophies in areas of nail art, Japanese calligraphy, flower arrangement, knitting and many more, as well as interacting with theirpassionate fans, enabling users to take creative lessons and start a new hobby.
MiddleField — MiddleField is a team to make cars the best entertainment and to make the lives of everyone involved in cars into entertainment. They creates a society where a lot of people are involved as a middle point of all people's dreams. MiddleField owns and operates an e-commerce platform offering cars.

Accord Ventures is a venture capital firm that believes in and supports the potential of Asian entrepreneurs. It has invested in more than 50 startups in Japan, the United States, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia, and new technologies that bring new value to society, such as IoT, AI, and fintech, with a focus on platform businesses that utilize ITtechnology. And new services are supported.

Investment focus

Software, Internet, SaaS
Series A, Seed, Funding Round
Japan, United States, Malaysia

Portfolio highlights

Mawari — Our mission is to unlock new perspectives with real-time immersive technology powered by a decentralized network of global resources
Housmart — Housmart is a real estate media company
StoreHub — StoreHub is an all-in-one POS system that helps future-proof F&B and retail businesses in Southeast Asia. Manage and grow your business, anytime, anywhere.

Fujita Kanko is a Japan-based company mainly engaged in the hotel business.

Investment focus

Apps, Mobile, Travel
Seed
Japan

Portfolio highlights

tripla — Tripla provides IT services for various industries such as hotels, railways, travel-related, restaurants, real estate, and apparel. It is one of the fastest-growing startups in Japan that aims to provide a platform where any tourists can make any reservations they want to make in their language through any chat and voice platforms. It provides theservice to hundreds of customers like hotels, rent- a- car companies, transportation companies that provide services to tourists. Tripla chatbot, a BPO service that solves daily inquiry cost reduction and multilingual support at once, has been well received by customers due to its learning AI and double support from operators who are familiar with the industry. Also, the new hotel reservation engine equipped with the OTA price comparison of each company and the automatic best rate adjustment function has significantly increased the ratio of in-house reservations and contributed to the improvement of profitability.
umami.me — Order Food in English at Restaurant in Japanumami will help youFind menu you can eat and order in your own languageCommunicate with non-English speaking staff when you orderFind coupons and get discount or rewardSince its launch back in April of 2015, the Umami mobile app has been adopted by about 250 restaurants in Japan. The app allowsrestaurants to provide their menu in English, Chinese (simplified and traditional) and Korean as well as Japanese, attract customers through coupons, and spread words using social network services so that they can better reach out to foreign visitors. For customers, it helps them find restaurants following their dining preference using a recommendation feature, making orders at a restaurant in their mother tongue and choosing allergy-free or halal food menus.

DD Holdings Venture Capital is the investment arm of DD Holdings, a restaurant and amusement brand.

Investment focus

Content, Ethereum, Education
Series A
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.
Knowledge Merchants Works — Knowledge Merchant Works Co., Ltd. is offering the next-generation leader “Juku” series, which provides business and organizational transformation projects to the next generation of store service leaders, and the application series, “Hata,” which helps improve store productivity. Luck® Platform ”.

Coral Capital is a seed stage venture capital firm in Japan.

Investment focus

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

Portfolio highlights

STRACT — STRACT is a web platform that provides online platform, dating app, knowledge sharing cloud platform, and casual entertainment services.
HQ — HQ offers next-generation employee benefits platform.
Okuma Diamond Device — Okuma Diamond Device supplies cutting-edge technologies that make diamond semiconductors vital.

Osaka University Venture Capital is a venture capital firm that focuses on early-stage ventures in the fields of life innovation, green innovation, and platform technology. The firm was founded in 2014 and based in Osaka, Japan.

Investment focus

Biotechnology, Manufacturing, Health Care
Funding Round, Seed, Series A
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Alpha Fusion — Alpha Fusion Inc. is a clinical-stage startup committed to transforming cancer treatment through the design and development of powerful and precise radiopharmaceuticals.
Celaid Therapeutics — Celaid Therapeutics specializes in manufacturing and sales of regenerative medicine products utilizing human hematopoietic stem cells.
Red Arrow Therapeutics — Red Arrow Therapeutics is a biotech firm that provides systemic cytokine delivery, targeted intratumoral activation, and biological potency.

500 Startups is the most active seed VC in the world. 500 Startups Japan is a $35M regional fund focusing on Japan.

Investment focus

Internet, Software, Human Resources
Seed, Series A, Funding Round
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Noin — Noin specializes in cosmetics and delivers content that accurately captures trends like videos that solve girls worries.
Trustdock — Trustdock is a platform for identity confirmation API service in Japan. You can outsource KYC / identity confirmation via online API, complying with various laws including criminal profit transfer prevention law, antique sales law, cell phone fraud prevention use law etc. It can be used with any ID service regardless of business type, such asmatching to FinTech, shared eco, etc.
Connected Robotics — Connected Robotics is an information technology company that designs and manufactures robotic arms for enterprises. The company's product, OctoChef, provides cooking services. It caters to individual restaurants, shopping malls, stations, service areas, amusement centers, and large-scale events. The company was founded in 2014 and is basedin Koganei-shi, Japan.

Nishio Kentaro is the Founder, Chief Executive Officer & President at Game8.

Investment focus

Information Technology, Internet, Software
Seed
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Morght — Morght is an information technology service company.
YOUTRUST — YOUTRUST is a startup to operate YOUTRUST a referral recruitment platform for side-job change.
Cloud Franchise — Cloud Franchise is a cloud kitchen model that aims to maximize the kitchen occupancy rate of restaurants.

One the most biggest company in Japan dealing with tourism.

Investment focus

Travel, Leisure, Sales
Seed, Series A, Series B
Japan, Denmark

Portfolio highlights

Goodwings — Choose responsible travel options, track emissions, and offset them for free with Goodwings. Our sustainability-focused travel management system helps you travel responsibly while reducing your carbon footprint.
byFood.com — Food tours, cooking classes, dining experiences & tastings in Japan. Enjoy a meal in Japan and help children around the world thr
Tablecross — Tablecross is a Marketing consulting business for restaurants.

XTech Ventures aims to achieve dramatic growth for investee companies by supporting entrepreneurship, multifaceted management support, and IPO support for the excellent middle class who are enthusiastic about entrepreneurship.

Investment focus

Software, Information Technology, Media and Entertainment
Seed, Funding Round, Series A
Japan, Italy, United Arab Emirates

Portfolio highlights

&Jam — &Jam &Jam is a real social production that provides creative consultation services.
Aplaca.Lab — Aplaca.Lab is a driver substitution platform that provides an unprecedented new driving experience. They released a driving agency application for providing comfortable driving experiences. It enables driving agencies to optimize their resources and clients' safety, prevent accidents, and receive assistance in areas with limited transportationoptions.
Creator's X — Creator's X is an anime production firm that focuses on developing animation production assistance tools using AI.

Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) and its group companies offer a broad range of financial services centered on banking. They are also engaged in the leasing, securities, credit card, investment, mortgage securitization, venture capital and other credit related businesses. The following lists the activities of SMBC, its subsidiaries andaffiliates in the various business segments.

Investment focus

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

Portfolio highlights

Striemo — Striemo manufactures and develops electric personal mobility. Striemo was founded in 2021 and was headquartered in Tokyo, Japan.
Orbital Lasers — Orbital is a space tech company that provides space debris business to remove debris and a satellite LiDAR business to provide surface data.
RadioNano Therapeutics — RadioNano Therapeutics is developing innovative drugs for Boron Neutron Capture Therapy (BNCT), a type of radiation therapy that utilizes the nuclear reaction between thermal neutrons and boron-10 (¹⁰B) to destroy cancer cells by releasing alpha particles and lithium nuclei.

VELTRA is a site dedicated to local tours where you can book over 14,000 kinds of overseas optional tours. A wide range of genres that can be participated overseas such as sightseeing tours, world heritage sightseeing, marine sports, diving, golf, spa and esthetics, dinner cruise, show entertainment, etc. are enriched!

Investment focus

Travel, Consulting, Advertising
Series A
Japan

Portfolio highlights

byFood.com — Food tours, cooking classes, dining experiences & tastings in Japan. Enjoy a meal in Japan and help children around the world thr
Tablecross — Tablecross is a Marketing consulting business for restaurants.

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.

Mitsubishi UFJ Capital is a venture capital firm focusing on life science, ICT, and high technology investments.

Investment focus

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

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.
greenase — greenase is a manufacturer and seller of processed agricultural products.
Grand Central — Grand Central is a consulting company specializing in the sales field.

NES Venture Capital is an investment firm.

Investment focus

Apps, Software, Web3
Seed, Series A
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Recri — Recri works for the entertainment industry and specializes in operations management tasks like ticketing for stage, film, and music shows.
D-Chain — D-Chain offers services related to IT development and production in the Web3 and Web2 fields.
Metaverse Creators — Metaverse Creators is a feature-rich virtual platform providing gamers with a wide range of games, creation tools, and avatar editing tools.

MTG Ventures is the corporate venture capital arm of MTG that invests in beauty and wellness tech, food tech, and sports tech sectors.

Investment focus

Media and Entertainment, Marketing, Food and Beverage
Funding Round, Seed, Series A
Japan

Portfolio highlights

knowuit — knowuit is a company that provides supply chain efficiency solutions to shippers. It develops and provides "Newit," a supply chain DX tool for shippers.
Robofull — Robofull is a manufacturing firm that specializes in the design and sale of automation equipment for factories to solve the labor shortage.
Auba — Auba is engaged in open innovation program, consulting specialized in Ol, and media outreach activities.

CSAJ is a non-profit organization which has about 500 PC software developers, publishers, system integrators, distributors, dealers and its related support service providers. The main activities are committees, exhibitions, market surveys, and collaboration with overseas associations.

Investment focus

Artificial Intelligence, Apps, Beauty
Seed, Series C, Funding Round
Japan

Portfolio highlights

tripla — Tripla provides IT services for various industries such as hotels, railways, travel-related, restaurants, real estate, and apparel. It is one of the fastest-growing startups in Japan that aims to provide a platform where any tourists can make any reservations they want to make in their language through any chat and voice platforms. It provides theservice to hundreds of customers like hotels, rent- a- car companies, transportation companies that provide services to tourists. Tripla chatbot, a BPO service that solves daily inquiry cost reduction and multilingual support at once, has been well received by customers due to its learning AI and double support from operators who are familiar with the industry. Also, the new hotel reservation engine equipped with the OTA price comparison of each company and the automatic best rate adjustment function has significantly increased the ratio of in-house reservations and contributed to the improvement of profitability.
umami.me — Order Food in English at Restaurant in Japanumami will help youFind menu you can eat and order in your own languageCommunicate with non-English speaking staff when you orderFind coupons and get discount or rewardSince its launch back in April of 2015, the Umami mobile app has been adopted by about 250 restaurants in Japan. The app allowsrestaurants to provide their menu in English, Chinese (simplified and traditional) and Korean as well as Japanese, attract customers through coupons, and spread words using social network services so that they can better reach out to foreign visitors. For customers, it helps them find restaurants following their dining preference using a recommendation feature, making orders at a restaurant in their mother tongue and choosing allergy-free or halal food menus.
Life Log Technology — Lifelog Technology has been developing exclusive apps for medical professionals, including those for the general public, such as participating in medical institution research technically.

Orient Corporation is a consumer credit company that provides auto loans, credit cards, and direct cash loan services. The company was founded in 1954 and based in Tokyo, Japan.

Investment focus

Apps, Logistics, Information Services
Series A, Funding Round, Series D
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.
Ecommit — Ecommit is a venture company that creates new environmental businesses with reuse and recycling as the main axis
Baseconnect Japan — Baseconnect Co., Ltd. connects people from all over the world and spends one-tenth the time it takes for people to “know”.

Voyage Ventures is the venture capital arm of Voyage Group specializing in seed and early-stage investments. The firm seeks to make investments in the internet and mobile internet industry. It invests from JPY1 million ($.01million) to JPY to 10 million ($.12 million) in its portfolio companies. The firm typically invests in Japan, China, and othergrowing Asian markets. Voyage Ventures, Inc., formerly known as EC Navi Ventures Company, was founded on March 25, 2011, and is based in Tokyo, Japan.

Investment focus

Software, Internet, Content
Funding Round, Seed, Series A
Japan, China, Germany

Portfolio highlights

pickupon — Pickupon is a company that transcribes important parts of the call
bravesoft — bravesoft is a software company that operates events and in-house product for contract development and events. The company offering services such as UI / UX design, application consignment development service, appvisor push, and technical research service.
ventus Japan — ventus is an Media and Entertainment based company.ventus aiming to be an entertainment company that provides technology that all fans can enjoy.

giftee is an online service where you can send a small 'thank you' through small gifts by twitter and email. Supported by Open Network Lab.

Investment focus

Marketing, Internet, CRM
Series A, Funding Round, Debt Financing
Japan

Portfolio highlights

SIRU+ — SIRU+ is a startup that enables you to convert consumer purchasing data into nutrients and visualize and quantify consumer shopping trends. Through the app developed by the company, consumers can know their nutrition status. The service “SIRU+ (SIRU+)” is an app that lets you know the nutrition of what you bought by simply registering a super pointcard.
Xmart — Xmart is a Costs can be reduced by simply sending invoices for one month.
Domuz — Domuz is a firm that wants to utilize technology and design to create a lifestyle that makes potted plants and flowers more comfortable.

Colopl Next is the corporate venture capital of is Colopl, Inc, which is a leading Japanese gaming company. Colopl, Inc. is founded with the mission of “Entertainment in Real Life”, and constantly put its customer as first priority.Colopl Next is headquartered in Japan, but invests globally in a variety of internet businesses, with the commitmentto support innovative entrepreneurs.

Investment focus

Virtual Reality, Software, E-Commerce
Seed, Series A, Funding Round
Japan, United States, South Korea

Portfolio highlights

Coopel — Coopel is an RPA that allows beginners to easily automate daily tasks and make work efficient.
Levellr — Levellr software helps creators & brands to build, manage and monetise messaging communities within existing apps, including Discord & Telegram. Our tools, which sit on top of Discord & Telegram, help our customers to acquire powerful-first party data on superfans, build highly engaged communities & generate tangible revenueopportunities, whilst also providing our customers with community strategy & on-going moderation services to ensure their communities thrive.
ChillStack — ChillStack provides information on AI, security, and development.

Winroader with a strong mission to create a new flow of goods in the logistics industry.

Investment focus

Delivery, Wholesale, E-Commerce
Funding Round
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Hachimenroppi — Corporate website of Hachimenroppi, Inc.. Launching e-commerce services for restaurants and individuals in Japan. Includes information about our company, its services, careers, and investor relations.

SUKOYAKA HOLDINGS is a mental and physical health care service provider.

Investment focus

Automotive, Mobile Apps, Restaurants
Seed
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Aplaca.Lab — Aplaca.Lab is a driver substitution platform that provides an unprecedented new driving experience. They released a driving agency application for providing comfortable driving experiences. It enables driving agencies to optimize their resources and clients' safety, prevent accidents, and receive assistance in areas with limited transportationoptions.

Nissay Capital is a venture capital Company specializing in seed, start-up, growth capital, middle stage, and later stage investment.

Investment focus

Health Care, Internet, Medical
Funding Round, Seed, Series A
Japan, United States, Ethiopia

Portfolio highlights

Castee — Castee provides social collaboration services and also helps with a tool for job requests and overseas projects for creators.
HQ — HQ offers next-generation employee benefits platform.
Qlay — Qlay is an AI-automated global engineer hiring platform

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.

coconala Skill Partners is a matching platform venture capital firm that creates encounters between seed / early-stage entrepreneurs and skill partners who want to support their aspirations.

Investment focus

Human Resources, Online Portals, Information Technology
Seed, Series A, Funding Round
Japan, United States

Portfolio highlights

Comvey — Comvey provides a shopping experience that is friendly to people and the earth. It primarily offers a foldable share bag online.
SoVa — SoVa operates an accounting firm that combines technology and experts.
ElevationSpace — ElevationSpace offers high quality & well equipped workspaces giving tenants a nurturing environment .

iMercury Capital is an investment subsidiary established to expand Mixi's business portfolio and realize discontinuous growth beyond the SNS "Mixi" business. iMercury Capital plans to invest 5 billion yen together with Mixi, aiming to generate profits through long-term holdings. It also covers everything from start-ups to latestages, as well as both online and offline businesses.

Investment focus

Software, Internet, Mobile
Series B, Funding Round, Series C
Japan, United States

Portfolio highlights

WELMO — WELMO has currently been working on R&D to launch Japan's largest welfare AI service platform called "CPA(Care Plan Assistant)" which supports care coordinator (caregiver), who helps a daily activities of the elderly people, to create a care plan for them, with using ICT and advanced technology, especially NLP(Natural LanguageProcessing), in terms of knowledge support. It has mainly two fundamental technologies; data warehouse includes all fast date and big date about care, explainable AI that describes a reason why the care is provided for the users. It also reduces time and cost to create the care plan, which enables anyone to be able to use easily and get enough information that the users want to know and use.
Creema — Creema operates an online marketplace for handmade products. It provides its clients with social commerce, art events, and related services. The company is based in Shibuya, Kanagawa.
Meleap — HADO is a new sport utilizing the leading AR technology with players wearing a head mounted display and an armband sensor to compete against each other by using the ‘energy ball’ or ‘shield’ and earn points in a three-on-three, eighty-minutes game between two teams.

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