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Top 50 Restaurants Startup Investors in Japan

Last updated: Apr 2024 A list of 50 angel investors and VC 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

Investor	Restaurants Japan investments
Kemuri Ventures	3
Kotaro Chiba	2
East Ventures	2
Femto Partners	2
YJ Capital	2
Yusuke Tanaka	2
Freebank	2
Vector	2
Ceres	2
iSGS Investment Works	2
Komura Fujio	2
Kotaro Chiba	2
Osaka University Venture Capital	1
Nishio Kentaro	1
Sansei Capital Investment	1
JTB Corp.	1
SMBC Venture Capital	1
Kensuke Furukawa	1
ANRI	1
Mitsubishi UFJ Capital	1
MTG Ventures	1
VOYAGE VENTURES	1
Venture United	1
DD Holdings Venture Capital	1
Colopl Next	1
Orient Corporation	1
Winroader	1
XTech Ventures	1
iMercury Capital	1
giftee	1
Nobuhiro Ariyasu	1
Allied Architects	1
Computer Software Association of Japan	1
Shintaro Yamada	1
PR Times	1
Nobuyuki Idei	1
500 Startups Japan	1
Beenos Partners	1
SUKOYAKA HOLDINGS	1
Monex Ventures	1
Coral Capital	1
GMO VenturePartners	1
Ryugin research Institute	1
Noguchi Keito	1
SLD Entertainment	1
aucfan Co.,Ltd.	1
Okinawa Development Finance Corporation	1
Adways	1
Scrum Ventures	1
Fujita Kanko	1

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Investor list

Kemuri Ventures is a Japanese venture capital firm.

Investment focus

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

Portfolio highlights

AlgaleX — AlgaleX is a firm that utilizes discarded food waste to create ingredients such as plant-based proteins.
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.

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.

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.

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

SkymatiX — SkymatiX develop and provide remote sensing syng service for drone.
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.
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

"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.

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.

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

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

Portfolio highlights

PeaceTecLab — PeaceTecLab is a CtoCsharing service, as its main business.
The Ethical Spirits & Co. — The Ethical Spirits & Co. is an online store for spirits and alcohol.
Driver Technologies — Driver Technologies is a cloud logistics platform provider. It provides a solution for driver matching and cargo vehicle demands.

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

CotoLab. — CotoLab is an Internet company.
DINETTE — DINETTE is a cosmetics manufacturing company.
SOUNDRAW — Your personal AI music generator.

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

BABY JOB — BABY JOB offers nursery support and child care support businesses.
SOUNDRAW — Your personal AI music generator.
Gojo & Company — We are enabling financial inclusion for everyone by partnering with financial service providers.

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.

Kotaro Chiba is the founder of ChibaDojo Fund. Kotaro Chiba attended Keio University.

Investment focus

Internet, Travel, 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.

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

Portfolio highlights

EX-Fusion — EX-Fusion develops the first commercial laser based nuclear fusion reactor for power generation.
Thinker — Thinker provides sales of proximity sensors and proposed solutions using these products.
Restore Vision — Restore Vision is a startup based in Japan aiming to develop a visual restoration gene therapy.

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.

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

Investment focus

Content, Medical, Biotechnology
Funding Round, Series A, Series B
Japan, 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 Inc. — 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.

One the most biggest company in Japan dealing with tourism.

Investment focus

Travel, Social, Location Based Services
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.

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, Mexico

Portfolio highlights

Ababa — Ababa provides recruitment and employment solutions.
HarvestX — HarvestX manufactures fully automatic robots which contributes to the shortage of agricultural human resources and stable food production
Smartpay — Smartpay is the first free of charge BNPL payment option for Japanese consumers who have credit cards. There are no sign-up fees, interest fees, settlement fees, or late charges. The payment experience is also Japan’s first cross-merchant, cross-platform, and single-click checkout BNPL service, allowing consumers to checkout in as little as 10seconds. The BNPL payment solution is simple to understand, structured on 3 equal installments over 8 weeks. This means that unlike the existing BNPL services in Japan, customers do not need to go to the convenience store to make payments or pay any bank transfer fees.

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, Software
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.

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

Investment focus

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

Portfolio highlights

MOVeLOT — MOVeLOT is an AI company that provides skeletal platform and robot planning, development, and production services.
xCARE — xCARE specializes in the development and commercialization phases of the pharmaceutical and medical device industries.
Infobox — Infobox is a sales data platform that includes every detail from market research to creating a list of companies and contacting decision-makers.

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 B, Series A
Japan, United States, China

Portfolio highlights

Parallel — Parallel Inc. develops a parallel SNS which can be used while playing games on smartphones.
Swell — Swell is an information technology company that specializes in providing web and digital platforms.
GenerativeX Co — GenerativeX provides AI app development, consulting, and generative model development.

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

Marketing, Health Care, Media and Entertainment
Seed, Funding Round, Series A
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Airato — Airato specializes in the development of radiation therapy using artificial intelligence technology.
Tokuiten — Tokuiten is a company that develops systems for the production of organic vegetables and automates their cultivation.
Lx Design — Lx Design is an application that connects schools with people who wants to work as a teacher.

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.

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

Investment focus

Internet, Software, Information Technology
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.

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 ”.

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

Rybit — A leading technology platform that connects the last mile delivery industry, optimizing and simplifying day-to-day delivery operations.
Levr.ai — Levr.ai is an intelligent loans platform built to get your business funded—fast
Return Helper — Founded in 2018, Return Helper is a data-driven return management solution that optimizes return process and the aftermarket activities for online retailers. We support all the major ecommerce platforms including Amazon and FBA, eBay, Walmart, Shopify, Rakuten etc.

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.
New Revo — New Revo is a logistics start-up company that provides "strategic logistics".
Baseconnect Japan — Baseconnect Co., Ltd. connects people from all over the world and spends one-tenth the time it takes for people to “know”.

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.

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

Nexta — Nexta manufactures site, issues such as analog management, personalization of operations & labor shortages are becoming more serious.
Collectest — Collectest specializes in integrating AI into trading card appraisal procedures that show current market pricing and verify authenticity.
Infobox — Infobox is a sales data platform that includes every detail from market research to creating a list of companies and contacting decision-makers.

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.

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.
WAmazing — WAmazing provides free subscriber identification module (SIM) cards that allow foreign travelers to register before their arrival in Japan. Through an app, WAmazing also provides tourists with free internet services of up to 500MB. The service aims to prevent visitors from being locked out of free wifi because of sign-up pages in Japanese thatdemand a local phone number.WAmazing was founded in 2016 and is based in Tokyo, Japan.

Nobuhiro Ariyasu is the CEO at Coach United.

Investment focus

Internet, Content, Finance
Seed, Angel, Funding Round
Japan, Singapore

Portfolio highlights

Issues — Issues provides development and management of web service issues that solve the problems.
Jiraffe — jiraffe focusses on Internet service planning, development, and management.
Collectest — Collectest specializes in integrating AI into trading card appraisal procedures that show current market pricing and verify authenticity.

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

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.

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 — Autify - Revolutionizing Software Testing with the most advanced AI-powered Software Testing Tool
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.

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. Change the game!

Nobuyuki Idei has served as our independent director since June 2007.Being an experienced director, Nobuyuki Idei currently also serves as director of Accenture, director of FreeBit Co, Ltd., director of Lenovo Group, and chairman of the National Conference on Fostering Beautiful Forests in Japan.Nobuyuki Idei is the founder and chief executiveofficer of Quantum Leaps Corporation, a specialist consultancy that advises private and public institutions on the changing role of technology in the 21st century.Nobuyuki Idei is also the founder and chairman of the board of Asia Innovators’ Initiative, a private non-profit organization that he established in 2011 to serve as a catalyst for social innovation in Asia by bringing together a diverse range of individuals and promoting knowledge sharing.Nobuyuki Idei was chairman and chief executive officer of Sony Corporation from 2000 to 2005, chief corporate advisor from 2005 to 2007, and chairman of the advisory board from 2007 to 2012.Prior to that, Nobuyuki Idei held a range of leadership positions at Sony including general manager of the audio division, senior general manager of the home video group, and president and representative director.Nobuyuki Idei has also served in a number of other advisory positions including as counselor to the Bank of Japan, member of Japan’s national IT Strategy Council, and vice-chairman of Nippon Keidanren.Nobuyuki Idei received a bachelor of science degree in economics and politics from Waseda University in Tokyo.

Investment focus

Information Technology, Manufacturing, Internet
Seed, Funding Round, Corporate Round
Japan, France, United States

Portfolio highlights

Pyrenee — Pyrenee is a hardware startup that creates devices that protect people's lives.
Antescofo — Antescofo is the mariage of world-class R&D and Business endeavours. Their technology is the result of 7+ years of R&D in the world’s largest laboratory dedicated to Music and Technology, IRCAM in Paris, and public experience with the most important musicians and orchestras around the world. The principle? Through Intelligent MachineListening, they recognize how humans perform music in real-time and use that information to synchronize content and provide an immersive experience! Antescofo was incorporated in July 2016 and based in Paris, France.
Stake Technologies — Stake Technologies is a technology company that provides blockchain solutions to enterprises.

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.

Beenos is a platform for startups. Our in-house team of entrepreneurs-in-residence and specialists help you get your ideas off the ground. We’re (the) experts in engineering, design, data science, and business management. We know how to launch a company in this ever changing IT industry, and we’d like to help establish and expand your present andfuture business.The company was founded in 1999 as NetPrice.com, a provider of eCommerce services. NetPrice.com established Beenos as an incubation program before

Investment focus

E-Commerce, Internet, Mobile
Seed, Series A, Series B
Japan, United States, India

Portfolio highlights

Raena — RAENA adalah platform reseller kecantikan terbesar di Indonesia yang memberikan peluang bisnis rumahan yang menjanjikan. Dropshipper & Reseller produk kecantikan
Ralali — Ralali.com, Pusat toko grosir online pertama di Indonesia, sebagai b2b wholesale marketplace platform yang menghubungkan supplier, distributor dengan retail.
Delivered Korea — Shop Korea,Ship Worldwide From South Korea to your country, we deliver any Korean products to your doorstep for less. Shipping Rates How It Works Play

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.

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

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

Investment focus

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

Portfolio highlights

Facilo — Facilo is a real estate communication cloud that offers unifies and visualizes the complex communication of real estate brokerage solutions.
Dioseve — Dioseve is providing novel possibilities for all life.
HQ Inc — Hq is a consutling firm that works in the area of personnel organization strategy, working style office strategy and software development.

An investment that restructures the value and quality.Supplying big capital is not an essential value of our firm.We have a strong attitude to input and drive critical thinking behind a new startup.After the problem is clarified and solution become established in the world,people could not imagine the society without that solution.An investment that innovates this world.We will become a real partner to execute the strategy together.INVENTION OF THE ESSENCE ----we will keep on doing it.

Investment focus

Financial Services, FinTech, Finance
Seed, Funding Round, Series A
Japan, United States, India

Portfolio highlights

Asuene — Asuene involves in clean power retail business, retail SaaS business, etc.
Fondo — Fondo is an all-in-one accounting platform for startups. We'll handle your bookkeeping, tax, and tax credits so you can focus on building your startup.
Mundi — Mundi provides financial, trade development, strategy, freight and reinventing international trade services.

Ryugin Research Institute Co., Ltd., took over its business from the Economic Research Office of the Corporate Support Department, which is the economic research division of the Bank of the Ryukyus, and became independent on June 28, 2006 in a form that further strengthened its functions.The Ryukyu Bank Research Department was the predecessor ofthe Economic Research Office, but since the foundation of the Ryukyu Bank in 1948, it has conducted various economic and industrial surveys and made proposals and proposals, etc. We have been committed to development.

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.

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.

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.

Aucfan is the only company in Japan that provides all the eCommerce price data across the big three market, America, China and Japan. The data Aucfan aggregates has reached more than 800millions with last 8 years coverage and Aucfan provides these data through its website Aucfan.com. (www.aucfan.com).The data Aucfan provides both to theconsumers and the retailers include the the price across the major global EC and Auction sites such as Rakuten, the No1 shopping site in Japan, Yahoo! Auction, the No1 Auction site in Japan, and Amazon Japan as well as eBay.com, the No1 EC site in US, and Taobao, the No1 Auction site in China.By visiting the Aucfan.com, buyers and sellers can easily find the price and the value of the product globally.Aucfan currently focuses on the consumer buesinss but Aucfan's next strategy is to expand its business to the BtoB by providing the price data to the EC and retail markets and helping them make the critical judgement for the price setting and purchsing just like the Bloomberg providing the financial informationto the financial brokers and helping them make the business judgement.Aucfan's next ambition is to expand its business globally and as the part of that strategy, Aucfan has already launched the Chinese website in JULY/2010 and plans to open the US site in SEP/2010.

Investment focus

E-Commerce, Marketing, Internet
Funding Round, Series A, Corporate Round
Japan, Indonesia, France

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.
Yuwaeru — Yuwaeru is a Direct-to-Consumer company
nextProtein — nextProtein is developing a large scale and sustainable insect based source of protein. The bioconversion of fly larvae fed with organic waste generates valuable feed components for fish, livestock and pets.

Okinawa Development Finance Corporation provides policy-based financial services.

Investment focus

Apps, Content, Medical
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.
Payke — Payke Multicomponent is an application that allows to view all the information of products in their mother tongue.The application "Payke" makes it possible to connect products around the world to the Internet by utilizing the bar codes that are scattered throughout the world. the company's goal is to build an enormous database basedon barcodes. It is to reorganize and organize products around the world into a single database and allow anyone to freely access there. Anytime, anywhere, anyone will be able to touch the information of products around the world.
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.

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

Media and Entertainment, Internet, 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.

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

Dr. Treat — Experience pet care at its best with exceptional personalized veterinary care at unsurpassed levels. After all, our companions are entitled to happier, healthier, and longer lives.
Stellar Sleep — Stellar Sleep is a mobile app that helps you get better sleep using psychology. Stellar Sleep uses a combination of behavioral therapy, habit building social accountability, and gamification to create an enjoyable, yet clinically effective way for people to improve their sleep.
Titan Content — Titan Content is a metaverse music service provider that seeks to fuse Web3, metaverse, and artificial intelligence innovations with conventional Korean pop music business models and content.

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.

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