Top 5 Retail Angel Investors in Japan in May 2025

Last updated: May 2025 A list of 5 angel investors that invest in Retail startups based in Japan. We rank investors based on the number of investments they made in Retail companies from Japan. We update this investor list every month.

Top 5 Retail Angel Investors in Japan in May 2025

Investor	Retail Japan investments
Makoto Takano	1
Yasuyuki Kin	1
Hirofumi Miki	1
Yoshikazu Azuma	1
Niklas Eklund	1

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Investor list

Makoto Takano is CEO of atomixmedia, inc., publisher and editor-in-chief of Forbes Japan and Rolling Stone Japan since June, 2014. Prior to joining Atomixmedia, Inc., he was Managing Director and President of PIMCO Japan Ltd. Before joining PIMCO in 2001, he was head of marketing at Goldman Sachs Asset Management. Makoto's prior experiencealso includes work at Daiwa Securities where he was head of the strategists team at Daiwa Institute of Research. He has published extensively on the capital markets. In 1992, he was awarded Securities Analysts Journal Prize by the Securities Analyst Association of Japan. He has also given lectures on asset management at Waseda University and Kyoto University. He holds master’s and undergraduate degrees in engineering from Waseda University. Makoto serves as Director of Nippon Finance Association and Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation.

Investment focus

Content, Sports, Apps
Seed, Series A, Series B
Japan, Philippines

Portfolio highlights

BeatFit — BeatFit is a fitness-tech startup based in Japan.
PROGRIT — PROGRIT is an English-related media management company.
Luup — Luup is an Internet Company.

Yasuyuki Kin

Investment focus

Media and Entertainment, Information Technology, Career Planning
Seed, Angel, Pre-Seed
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Onepair — Onepair is a job consulting and recruiting company. Onepair is to co-creating careers by talking about real-world ace with active ace.
Strainer Co., Ltd. — Strainer Co., Ltd. is an information distribution platform that conveys corporate information centered on financial data. Although there are not a few media to deliver financial information, the company's strengths are strong to be easily viewed, including financial information of overseas companies.
LAMILA — LAMILA develops system that improves the creation of retail stores.

After JTB Co., Ltd. and CYBIRD Co., Ltd. as an initial member of Glee Co., Ltd. is responsible for business development. Currently, he is mainly engaged in venture support in the Internet area, investing in venture and venture capital, and served as management advisor for dozens of companies. Hands-on business development, growth strategydevelopment, financing advice, HR organization design support, partner referral and Recruit Support. He is also engaged in business support for ventures in the healthcare and university venture fields. He served as Digital Health Meetup Advisor, NEDOTCP Mentor and Future 2016 Mentor.

Investment focus

Content, Marketing, Internet
Seed, Angel, Pre-Seed
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Epicbase — Epicbase is an AI-based automatic voice transcription service based on voice recognition technology.
Go Visions — Go Visions engages in the edutainment tech for children and human resources services.
Ai-Dounyu.com — Ai-Dounyu.com is a platform that helps organizations looking to integrate AI choose their ideal AI implementation partner for free.

Yoshikazu Azuma - Representative Director and CEO @ TWO

Investment focus

Retail, Security, Marketing
Series A, Funding Round
Japan

Portfolio highlights

AWL — AWL is a company that provides the leading edge AI camera solutions company .
W Tokyo — W TOKYO is a content production company that offers the latest and highest quality solutions by multiplying its own original content and solutions, centered on women, using the know-how cultivated in the Tokyo Girls Collection as a weapon .

Over the past 25 years, Niklas has an entrepreneur built and internationalized a range of companies in the area of reservation systems, revenue management, online marketing, and web publishing; amongst others he was the CEO and co-founder Bookatable, Livebookings, Infogate, and Epani.Over the past 8 years, Niklas has a direct investor and advisorto investment companies and venture capital companies; amongst others he was a co-founder and general partner at D-Ax (Axel Johnson Group CVC), a venture partner for Wellington Partners Venture Capital. Niklas is currently a general partner for PES Holdings. Investment focus is the Digital Media Sector and Digital Growth Companies, primarily in the Nordic countries and across Europe. Niklas describes himself as a ‘computer software geek and wizard turned businessman’ as he started his career at the age of 15. His achievements in building internationally successful companies have been recognized by various industry awards.