Top 50 SaaS Angel Investors in Japan in December 2024
A list of 50 angel investors that invest in Saas startups based in Japan. We rank investors based on the number of investments they made in Saas companies from Japan. We update this investor list every month.Top 50 SaaS Angel Investors in Japan in December 2024
Investor | SaaS Japan investments |
---|---|
Ayataro Nakagawa | 28 |
Kotaro Chiba | 23 |
Kotaro Chiba | 23 |
Hidetoshi Takano | 21 |
Kensuke Furukawa | 21 |
Yu Akasaka | 20 |
Yusuke Sato | 20 |
Hirofumi Miki | 19 |
Nobuhiro Ariyasu | 18 |
Masao Ito | 13 |
Toru Shimada | 12 |
Tatsuo Sakamoto | 12 |
Mamoru Taniya | 11 |
Yoshinori Fukushima | 9 |
Soichiro Kawai | 9 |
Shogo Kawada | 9 |
Shintaro Yamada | 9 |
Yasuyuki Kin | 9 |
Jun Nishikawa | 8 |
Masanori Sugiyama | 8 |
Fumiaki Koizumi | 7 |
Ryosuke Matsumoto | 7 |
Noguchi Keito | 7 |
Shunsuke Oyu | 7 |
Yuki Naito | 6 |
Narita Shuzo | 6 |
Hironao Kunimitsu | 6 |
Yuzuru Honda | 6 |
Kiyoshi Nishikawa | 6 |
Naoki Aoyagi | 5 |
Kazuma Ieiri | 5 |
Yuichi Kawasaki | 5 |
Kazuhiro Ishikura | 5 |
Shota Horii | 5 |
Tomohito Ebine | 5 |
Chihiro Asano | 5 |
Masaru Tange | 4 |
Oki Matsumoto | 4 |
Sotaro Karasawa | 4 |
Shuichi Takenaga | 4 |
Shigeru Urushibara | 4 |
Yusuke Mitsumoto | 4 |
Masahiko Inada | 4 |
Hiroaki Kitano | 4 |
Narimatsu Jun | 4 |
Takaya Shinozuka | 4 |
Masaru Sunagawa | 4 |
Hiroki Nakamura | 4 |
Shuuichi Wada | 4 |
Makoto Takano | 4 |
2011 At university, participated in the founding period as a director of Atcole Co., Ltd., and started the web service experience.2012 Founded Peroli Co., Ltd.,
which operates a curation platform for women "MERY" .2014 Founded Peroli
Co., Ltd. Sold to DeNA
2015 Jointly established Tokyo Founders Fund as an angel investor and startedinvesting in startups in Japan and overseas
2019 Appointed outside director of FIREBUG Co., Ltd.
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Investment focus
- Internet, Software, Content
- Seed, Angel, Funding Round
- Japan, Hong Kong, United States
Portfolio highlights
- For you — For you is a comprehensive Advertising agency business specializing in SNS.
- Meetscare — Meetscare provides correct information and supports the self-awareness of all people involved in care. The company provides a wealth of information to ensure optimal care and create a mechanism for the realization. Users can make a telephone consultation and web diagnosis and search for free information using the system.Meetscare was founded on2016 and is headquartered in Arakawa, Tokyo.
- SPORTS CROWN — SPORTS CROWN engages in the development and operation of fantasy sports.
Kotaro Chiba is the founder of ChibaDojo Fund. Kotaro Chiba attended Keio University.
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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.
Kotaro Chiba is the founder of ChibaDojo Fund. Kotaro Chiba attended Keio University.
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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.
Joined Intelligence in 1999. Established Key Players Inc. in 2005. Consultation with more than 3,000 managers and career counseling for more than 10,000 individuals. In addition, we have invested in more than 55 outside directors, advisors and angels in Silicon Valley and Bangladesh in Japan. Over 100 lectures on careers, entrepreneurship andstartups.
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Investment focus
- Internet, Information Technology, Human Resources
- Seed, Angel, Funding Round
- Japan, United States
Portfolio highlights
- Kaymak — Kaymak is a recruitment platform that focuses on creating a recruitment website, planning a recruitment strategy, and managing candidates.
- D-Chain — D-Chain offers services related to IT development and production in the Web3 and Web2 fields.
- Rayout — Rayout is a business consulting company that provides creative content development, recruitment videos, and web production services.
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".
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Investment focus
- Content, Media and Entertainment, Social Media
- 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.
- Tohakusha — Tohakusha is a creative agency that offers design, production and sale of digital content and EC websites, and content creation services.
- 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.
During Hosei University student, and intern at Hakuhodo C & D. After joining the Image-net, I do media monetization of EC site as a media planner. Then, new business, engaged in Alliance. Launched a crowdsourcing site "MILLION DESIGNS" of design in the individual, sold to Ransazu Corporation. Established the Eureka Co., Ltd., wasappointed Representative Director CEO.
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Investment focus
- Food and Beverage, Content, Internet
- Seed, Angel, Funding Round
- Japan, Australia, Hong Kong
Portfolio highlights
- Now Do — Now Do provides online growth revolution platform.
- RE — RE specializes in smartphone application design and development.
- Vitalogue Health — Vitalogue Health offers Canvas, a home-based hormone testing service for women.
Yusuke Sato is the Co-Representative and Co-Founder of Pulit.
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Investment focus
- Internet, Content, Food and Beverage
- Seed, Funding Round, Angel
- Japan, Indonesia, United States
Portfolio highlights
- Kaymak — Kaymak is a recruitment platform that focuses on creating a recruitment website, planning a recruitment strategy, and managing candidates.
- Paytner — yup is providing services to support freelance people's funding.The freelance population in Japan has been shown to continue to increase in many Chosa. While working styles are diversified, they are not able to respond to the development of the working environment, and they will develop their business to change the situation where problemssuch as funding, credit, sexual harassment, and power harassment are accumulated.
- Meetscare — Meetscare provides correct information and supports the self-awareness of all people involved in care. The company provides a wealth of information to ensure optimal care and create a mechanism for the realization. Users can make a telephone consultation and web diagnosis and search for free information using the system.Meetscare was founded on2016 and is headquartered in Arakawa, Tokyo.
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.
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Investment focus
- Content, Marketing, Internet
- Seed, Angel, Pre-Seed
- Japan
Portfolio highlights
- aceRNA Technologies — AceRNA contributes to regenerative medicine and drug discovery through the discovery of novel miRNA functions. It began operation in April 2018, with its headquarters in Kyoto in Japan.
- 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.
Nobuhiro Ariyasu is the CEO at Coach United.
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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.
Masao Ito is a Founder & CEO at User Local.
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Investment focus
- Content, Social Media, Information Technology
- Seed, Series A, Angel
- Japan
Portfolio highlights
- Illusil — Illusil is a service that makes it easier for anyone to generate slide materials and reduces the amount of time needed to do it. Additionally, presentations can be automatically generated from text input by AI, and over 1,000 design templates can be used to build original slides.
- Aruya Umu — Aryaum supports "regional revitalization through NFT" by offering local governments all around the nation hometown tax and tourism NFT solutions.
- Driver Technologies — Driver Technologies is a cloud logistics platform provider. It provides a solution for driver matching and cargo vehicle demands.
Toru Shimada is a Senior Executive Officer and Director of Rakuten. Mr. Shimada is a Director of Rakuten Baseball, Inc., and Head of Asia Regional Headquarters Office of the Company.Mr. Shimada joined Rakuten in 2004. Prior to joining Rakuten, Mr. Shimada was founder and Director of INTELLIGENCE, LTD from 1989 to 2004. Prior to INTELLIGENCE, LTD.Mr. Shimada worked at RECRUIT CO., LTD. from 1987 to 1989.
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Investment focus
- Internet, Task Management, Marketing
- Seed, Angel, Funding Round
- Japan
Portfolio highlights
Tatsuo Sakamoto is a Head of Sales, Japan at MOLOCO. He Attended The University of Tokyo.
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Investment focus
- Information Technology, Education, Recruiting
- Seed, Angel, Pre-Seed
- Japan
Portfolio highlights
- Bgrass — bgrass is a consultation support platform for women working in the IT industry.
- Cloudbase — Cloudbase is an information technology company that specializes in the fields of cloud services and management.
- Metaverse Creators — Metaverse Creators is a feature-rich virtual platform providing gamers with a wide range of games, creation tools, and avatar editing tools.
After graduating from the Faculty of Law at the University of Tokyo, he joined Solomon Brothers, where he became the youngest managing director in Asia, where he was in charge of Asian investment. After that, he created one of the largest independent Asuka assets. He also launched Japan's first independent online life insurance company,LifeNet Life Insurance, and inspired Japan's first International.
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Investment focus
- Apps, Content, FinTech
- Seed, Series A, Funding Round
- Japan, Singapore, Spain
Portfolio highlights
- Revorf — Revorf analyzes data and develops AI-related to infectious diseases and healthcare.
- abillion — Find tips for plant-based food & products near you. Join the community to share reviews of restaurants & brands. Raise funds & drive sustainability!
- RIMM Sustainability — RIMM Sustainability provides a SaaS platform that enables companies of all sizes to optimise their sustainability management effort. It builds tools for sustainability management, reporting and optimisation.
Yoshinori Fukushima - CEO @ LayerX
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Investment focus
- Internet, Marketing, Media and Entertainment
- Seed, Angel, Series A
- Japan, Singapore
Portfolio highlights
- Now Do — Now Do provides online growth revolution platform.
- Manabie — Manabie is an Education Technology start-up company on a mission to provide a new style of online & offline merged learning around the world. We provide students with everything they need for efficient learning; high-quality learning materials, great learning environments, personal coaches and more! We believe that our new method of learning,integrating online and offline will dramatically innovate the way students learn.
- PeopleX — PeopleX encourages and assists employees in their professional development.
Soichiro Kawai - CEO @ ReBoost
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Investment focus
- Media and Entertainment, Information Technology, Internet
- Seed, Funding Round, Angel
- Japan
Portfolio highlights
- Villio — Villio provides talent experience SaaS which helps companies with human resource development and recruitment of talented engineers.
- HarvestX — HarvestX manufactures fully automatic robots which contributes to the shortage of agricultural human resources and stable food production
- SPeak Corporation — SPeak Corporation operates JPort Match that is involved in direct recruiting service. It is a global career platform for budding new talents.
Shogo Kawada is Co-founder and Adviser of DeNA, a global Internet company focused on a social games platform, social games, e-commerce and other Web services for mobile devices and PCs.
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Investment focus
- Software, SaaS, Media and Entertainment
- Seed, Funding Round, Angel
- Japan, United States
Portfolio highlights
- Voicy — Voicy is a mobile platform that recruits both media personalities and news organizations; the entertainers read the news so users can get the latest info from their favorite voices.
- sunblaze — sunblaze is a android-based smartphone users begin to experience stability issues after one to two years of use. For example, their device may get slower or they encounter unexpected app crashes. These stability issues also lead to security vulnerabilities.SUNBLAZE OS features essential functions only, meaning it does not have any unnecessaryfunctions. This allows the system to be more stable and secure, and users are able to use it for a longer period of time.
- Spider Labs — Spider Labs offers solutions to help fight ad fraud and ensure data security.
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.
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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.
Yasuyuki Kin
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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.
Jun Nishikawa - Co-founder, Executive Vice President, COO @ Eureka
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Investment focus
- Food and Beverage, Media and Entertainment, Mobile
- Seed, Series A, Angel
- Japan, United States
Portfolio highlights
- FamiOne — FamiOne is creating a society that will support the future of couples who want to receive children.
- Misaky Tokyo — Marine plant-based, handmade Japanese sweets. These crystal treats are individually handcrafted, the perfect gift idea! Vegan, gluten-free, and additive-free confectionery, with stunning flavors such as Yuzu, Matcha, and Rose. Supporting artisans in their craft. Japanese luxury sweets with a surprise inside.
- Reiwa Travel — Reiwa Trave is a digital travel agency intended that optimizes overseas travel. The company's platform uses online travel booking tools that provide digitalized contracts along with trip management, thereby enabling its customers' vacation and leisure experiences.
He graduated from Kansai University in 1988. He was enrolled in Ljoma while he was in college. 2002 Vice President of Practice (now index lights). In 2004, he became president of zappallas. Listed on the TSE Mothers in the second year of his appointment, and in 2010 he was listed in part of the TSE. In 2011 he became the CEO of enish. Listed on apart of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Thereafter, he served as outside directors such as Nikkatsu and JibannetHD.
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Investment focus
- Software, Internet, Media and Entertainment
- Seed, Angel, Series A
- Japan
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 .
- STUDIO — The easiest and quickest way to build your beautiful portfolio website, landing page or anything. No code. All creative freedom.
- STUDIO Japan — STUDIO is a development and operation of the next-generation design tool.
Fumiaki Koizumi - Executive Director @ Mercari
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Investment focus
- Internet, E-Commerce, Content
- Seed, Funding Round, Series A
- Japan
Portfolio highlights
- Luup — Luup is an Internet Company.
- Aoyama Arts — Aoyama Arts is an architecture and consulting company that develops design offices and supports land search and financing plans.
- FABRIC TOKYO — FABRIC TOKYO is a Japanese startup provides a direct-to-consumer custom-made apparel brand. (former-company name Lifestyle Design Co., Ltd.). It enables customers to save their sizes, idea fabrics, and favorite designs, allowing them to make their original clothing later.FABRIC TOKYO was founded in 2012 by Yuichiro Mori and is based in Tokyo,Japan.
Ryosuke Matsumoto is the Founder / CEO at Kankak. Ryosuke Matsumoto attended Chuo University.
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Investment focus
- Art, Reservations, Software
- Seed, Angel, Series A
- Japan
Portfolio highlights
- 6curry — 6curry is a brand that creates a new community around “curry”, one of the world's best Japanese foods. The concept is to mix many people and ideas like curry made by mixing various ingredients and spices. Original menu development, weekly events are held in the central kitchen, open only to members. We design and produce communication bornfrom food, such as event catering for over 500 people and communication proposals within the company.
- TRiCERA — TRiCERA is a contemporary art global platform management company.
- Vivid Garden — vivid garden is an Agriculture company.
Noguchi Keito - Founder @ Vapes
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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.
Shunsuke Oyu is the co-founder of Connehito Inc.
Started an online Q&A platform “mamari” which is the largest platform for moms in Japan. Connehito was acquired by one of the telecom giant KDDI in 2016.
Selected as a “Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia” at consumer technology department. Angel-investing 50+ companies globally.
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Investment focus
- Content, Internet, Media and Entertainment
- Seed, Angel, Funding Round
- Japan, Singapore, United States
Portfolio highlights
- Lock On — Achieving high performance and minimizing risk through the analysis of 1B+ addresses and a fully automated index.
- Tohakusha — Tohakusha is a creative agency that offers design, production and sale of digital content and EC websites, and content creation services.
- 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.
Yuki Naito - CEO,President @ Drecom
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Investment focus
- Manufacturing, Internet, SNS
- Seed, Pre-Seed, Series B
- Japan
Portfolio highlights
- 1SEC — 1sec is a virtual influencers in Japan,develop in-house and management. IMPACT to CEKAI in 1 second. Based on the concept of making CEKAI happy in one second, US based in Los Angeles and Japan, based in Tokyo, virtual influencers × AI, fashion & music & The company will develop a number of CEKAI's first and first projects in Japan inthe field of enter teignment.
- Fools — Fools is a footwear manufacturing company.
- Interstellar Technologies — Interstellar Technologies is a rocket development, manufacturing and launch service.
Narita Shuzo is a Executive Vice President/COO, CrowdWorks Inc.
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Investment focus
- Task Management, Media and Entertainment, Content
- Seed, Pre-Seed, Angel
- Japan
Portfolio highlights
- MIL — MIL is a marketing company it can be used for a wide range of video marketing such as video commerce , O2O measures , recruitment videos , and landing videos.
- Morght — Morght is an information technology service company.
- MiL Inc — Emerging products for healthcare food brands Producing food retailing and wholesale recipe development Restaurant management Catering media operation.
Hironao Kunimitsu was born in Hyogo, Japan. After graduating from Okayama High School, he spent several years traveling around the world. He visited over 30 countries including the US, China, India, Canada, and others in Central and South America.In 1996 he entered Fudan University in China, and then later went on to study at Santa MonicaCollege in the US. In 2004 he entered Atmovie Inc. where he produced movies and televised dramas, and was appointed company director in the same year. In 2007 he founded gumi Inc., and it started listing on first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange in December, 2014.
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Investment focus
- Virtual Reality, Content, Media and Entertainment
- Funding Round, Seed, Angel
- Japan, United States
Portfolio highlights
- 1SEC — 1sec is a virtual influencers in Japan,develop in-house and management. IMPACT to CEKAI in 1 second. Based on the concept of making CEKAI happy in one second, US based in Los Angeles and Japan, based in Tokyo, virtual influencers × AI, fashion & music & The company will develop a number of CEKAI's first and first projects in Japan inthe field of enter teignment.
- Gatari — Gatari is developing an AR audio platform, including the AR camera app Vismuth, which can call avatars in reality.
- Thirdverse — Thirdverse (formerly known as Yomuneco Inc) is engaged in Virtual Reality content and services planning, development, sales and management.
Yuzuru Honda is a Founder & Global CEO of FreakOut.
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Investment focus
- SNS, Internet, Software
- Seed, Funding Round, Angel
- Japan, Nigeria, Singapore
Portfolio highlights
- NodeFlair — NodeFlair aims to help tech talents make better career decisions through jobs, salaries, reviews, company insights, and more
- AGRI SMILE — AGRI SMILE is a platform that focuses on sharing agricultural technology.
- Tyms — Tyms online accounting software for your business connects you to your bank, accountant, bookkeeper, and other business apps. Start a free trial today. Also available in Nigeria, Ghana, Mauritius and South Africa.
After working at KDD Corporation (Currently known as KDDI Corporation), Kiyoshi Nishikawa next went to work at Arthur D. Little Inc. in the United States, where he became inspired to start his own company. After returning to Japan, he established a Japanese corporation of the world’s largest Internet company, America On Line, LLC. Later andbased on this experience and the relationships he developed, he founded the first Internet business incubator, NETAGE, Inc. After serving as the President and CEO of NETAGE Group, he later became and still serves as the Chairman of ngi group, inc. Kiyoshi was one of the main entrepreneurs responsible for proposing and realization of “Shibuya Bit Valley Concept†and is well known for his various speeches and writings. He is a graduate of the Department of Education at Tokyo University.
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Investment focus
- News, Social Media, Big Data
- Seed, Funding Round, Pre-Seed
- Japan, United States
Portfolio highlights
- PoliPoli — PoliPoli is a next-generation politics co-creation platform where you can participate like a game. Politicians from all over Japan post their policies in an easy-to-understand manner, and those who sympathize can enjoy working on the "missions" necessary to realize the policies.
- Astroscale — Astroscale is the first private company with a vision to secure the safe and sustainable development of space for the benefit of future generations, and the only company solely dedicated to on-orbit servicing across all orbits.
- TECHFUND — TechFund is a venture capital firm specializing in incubation and seed stage investments. The company is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan.
Naoki Aoyagi is a Senior Vice President at GREE, Inc. and Chief Executive Officer of GREE International, Inc. He joined GREE, Inc. in March 2006 from Deutsche Bank, where he had specialized in tech and media sector IPOs and M&A advisory work. At GREE, Aoyagi oversaw the Company's partnership with KDDI and its IPO before leading thedevelopment of GREE’s global operations, a role he continues today. Aoyagi earned a bachelor's degree in policy management from Keio University in 2002.
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Investment focus
- Internet, Fashion, Software
- Seed, Angel, Series A
- Japan
Portfolio highlights
- Enechain — enechain provides liquidity in Japan’s energy market by brokering OTC transactions of energy.
- Parallel — Parallel is the hangout app where you can enjoy games, videos, music, and more with friends.
- Holmes — Holmesis a cloud contract system to consistently carry out the creation, conclusion and management of contracts in the cloud.
Born in 1978 and raised in Fukuoka prefecture, Kazuma founded paperboy&co. inc. (currently GMO Pepabo) and went on to become the youngest CEO ever (at the time) to take a company public in Japan by taking paperboy&co. public on the JASDAQ Japanese stock exchange. After leaving paperboy&co, he continued his startup trail by foundingBASE, CAMPFIRE, and XIMERA. Kazuma also dabbled in the food services industry via the founding of On The Corner (a cafe) and is active in the startup investment scene. He also started the Liverty-house project which attempts to create shared housing for young people in need.
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Investment focus
- Content, Fashion, Recruiting
- Seed, Angel, Funding Round
- Japan
Portfolio highlights
- Taliki — Taliki is a Coworking Space Operates Social Entrepreneurs Development Support for Intrepreneur Development.
- ONE NOVA — One Nova (ワンノバ) is a lifestyle brand and online platform that offers a range of innerwear products, such as men's boxers.
- Vivid Garden — vivid garden is an Agriculture company.
Yuichi Kawasaki Prior joining SmartNews, I was COO at mixi, Founder & CEO at kamado, Executive Vice President at Hatena. I started my career at Cisco Systems G.K.
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Investment focus
- CRM, Finance, Security
- Angel, Seed
- Japan
Portfolio highlights
- Blankr — Blankr inc has developed an application called Raidli. Using the app, Vtubers can hold a virtual handshake event.
- earlyworks — Earlyworks Co., Ltd. provides blockchain technology solutions. The Company develops hybrid blockchain product that is fast and secure. Earlyworks offers software and system development, consulting, and security solution services.
- AVA Intelligence — AVA Intelligence is a Internet service development company.
Kazuhiro Ishikura served as the head of the Akatsuki Business Management Department in 2013 and as a corporate auditor of Akatsuki in 2014, contributing to the company's listing on the TSE Mothers and TSE 1st sections. Appointed 3minute CFO in 2015, engaged in business start-up and organizational design, and succeeded in large-scale M & Adeal with Glee. After leaving the company, he became a WARC director in November 2018. Certified public accountant.
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Investment focus
- Beauty, Content, Fashion
- Seed, Angel, Funding Round
- Japan
Portfolio highlights
- Neith — Neith is a apparel manufacturer, seller and a whoelseller of water absorbing bralette, lingerie and shorts for women.
- WARC Japan — WARC provides hands-on support for business management departments as well as mergers and acquisition advisory services.
- Vitalogue Health — Vitalogue Health offers Canvas, a home-based hormone testing service for women.
Shota Horii
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Investment focus
- Information Technology, Internet, Art
- Seed, Funding Round
- Japan
Portfolio highlights
- Flatt Security — Flatt Security is a cyber security company for all developers.
- Lecto — Lecto provides Saas solutions to eliminate the tedious practices behind financial services
- UNDEFINED Japan — UNDEFINED is a very young team with an average age of about 20 years.We develop products for teenagers who make the most of their youth by working closely with users.
Tomohito Ebine is non-executive Director at Owls Co., Ltd.
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Investment focus
- Home Services, Information Technology, Consulting
- Seed, Angel, Series A
- Japan, United States
Portfolio highlights
- HOMMA — Inspired Modern Living. Homes to elevate healthy urban lifestyles. Design. Build. Technology.
- Smartround — Smartround is a specialized finance management platform for startups and their investors. For start-ups, for entrepreneurs who are not familiar with finance, simply enter the necessary information according to the guide, prepare appropriate financing round, and prepare a function that can simulate and execute a capital increase. Support informationsharing and communication with shareholders even after the capital increase.
- CAREER BIJIN — Career bijin is a total support company.
Chief Technology Officer at Money Forward.
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Investment focus
- Content, Legal, FinTech
- Seed, Angel, Series A
- Japan
Masaru Tange graduated from Kyoto University and joined Incs Inc. in 2000 where he started their IT business and strategy consulting group with only 2 members and developed it into the company's main business with a team of 140 consultants with annual revenue of $50M in 5 years. He then founded SHIFT Inc in 2005 in his studio apartment. He wasthe only employee. The business world wasn't very kind to him - he made no revenue for a while but he kept experimenting with the business model listening to the needs of customers. In 2009, he finally found traction in the "software testing industry." In 2014, Masaru successfully IPO'ed the company. Shift now has 500 employees.
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Investment focus
- Internet, E-Commerce, SaaS
- Seed, Series A
- Japan, United States
Portfolio highlights
- Timee — Timee is a Planning, development and management of Internet media company.
- S-Mat — Smartmat is an eco-friendly IoT purchase system for on-demand, no-hassle grocery with cost-effective shipping.
- Launchable — Shorter test runs, smarter test triaging, test health insights, and test failure analysis. Remove friction from the dev-test loop to iterate & ship faster.
Oki Matsumoto began his career at Salomon Brothers Asia Limited in April 1987. He then joined Goldman Sachs Japan Co., Ltd. in April 1990 and was appointed General Partner of The Goldman Sachs Group, L.P. in November 1994. As a General Partner, he was Co-Head of its Tokyo Branch’s FX & Fixed Income Business and was in charge of FX and fixedincome products and the related risk management. It was in April 1999 that Matsumoto jointly established (the former) Monex, Inc. with Sony Corporation. In August 2004, Matsumoto become the Representative Director and CEO of the Company (former name: Monex Beans Holdings, Inc.) upon its formation through management integration of Monex, Inc. and Nikko Beans Inc. He was named the Representative Director, Chairman and CEO of the Company in February 2011 and then assumed his current position in June 2013.
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Investment focus
- Information Technology, Cryptocurrency, FinTech
- Angel, Seed, Series A
- Japan, Taiwan, Australia
Portfolio highlights
- Toposware — From pioneering cryptographic research to engineering global-scale distributed systems technologies, Toposware is committed to solving the hardest problems to advance open internet standards.
- WATASHIHA — WATASHIHA is a communication company.
- Space Walker — SPACE WALKER specializes in design, manufacture and sale of peripheral components.
Sotaro Karasawa - Chief Technology Officer @ STAR FESTIVAL
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Investment focus
- Software, Blockchain, Art
- Seed, Pre-Seed, Series B
- Japan
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.
- Atmoph — A smart digital window that opens to beautiful scenery from around the world. By simply putting it on your desk or hanging it on the wall, Atmoph Window will open up a whole new world before you.
- Cloudbase — Cloudbase is an information technology company that specializes in the fields of cloud services and management.
Takenaga Shuuichi is an individual investor.
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Investment focus
- Information Technology, Management Consulting, Marketing
- Seed, Angel, Funding Round
- Japan
Portfolio highlights
- Morght — Morght is an information technology service company.
- Tagpic — Tagpic offers influencer marketing targeting services such as influencer casting, SNS branding, and talent production.
- H&H Group Japan — H&H Holdingsis a Professional Services company.
Shigeru Urushibara - President & CEO @ UL Systems
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Investment focus
- Artificial Intelligence, Task Management, Social Media
- Series A, Seed, Angel
- Japan
Portfolio highlights
- EmbodyMe — Making the unimaginable, imaginable with AI
- SPACE WALKER — SPACE WALKER specializes in design, manufacture and sale of peripheral components.
- SingulaNet Ltd — SingulaNet Ltd provides a total solution using cutting-edge blockchain services.
Yusuke Mitsumoto is the founder of Cash.
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Investment focus
- Internet, Financial Services, Energy
- Seed, Angel, Series C
- Japan
Masahiko Inada is the Venture Advisor at DNX Ventures. He was Founder and Chairman at Kabuku Inc. He attended The University of Tokyo.
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Investment focus
- SNS, Content, Finance
- Angel, Seed
- Japan
Portfolio highlights
- Theoria — Theoria is a marketing team that brings together practical knowledge.
- Recipio Japan — Recipio is a service that can suggest recipes just by entering ingredients the user already has at home. The app can also refine suggestions based on the user's mood, the occasion, and how many people the user is eating with, and more.
- Theoria Japan — Theoria Japan is a specialized Q & A service.
Hiroaki Kitano is the SVP at Softbank Mobile. He attended Waseda University.
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Investment focus
- Health Care, Information Technology, Fitness
- Seed, Angel, Debt Financing
- Japan, United States
Portfolio highlights
- GPx — GPx is a biotech company that revolutionizes remote chronic disease management with bloodless blood tests. It is dedicated to transforming the standard of care of cardiorenal diseases and enabling patients to better understand their condition, much like the continuous glucose monitor has transformed diabetes care.The company was founded in 2020and is based in Boston, Massachusetts.
- Epistra — Epistra accelerates research and development in life sciences.
- Activaid — Activaid owns and operates a social data platform for patients with inflammatory bowel disease. It allows patients to support and exchange information within the patient community with the same disease; provide information necessary for new drug development and matching to clinical trials that suits them; and improve medical treatment. YasuakiHasebe founded Activaid in 2018. It has its headquarters in Tokyo in Japan.
Narimatsu Jun - Outside Director @ FiNC Technologies
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Investment focus
- Content, Media and Entertainment, SEO
- Seed, Angel, Series A
- Japan
Portfolio highlights
- Pulit — Pulit innovates the brand new Content Distribution Infra.
- Play Life — PlayLife is an experience sharing site where you can search, share, and post play information, where users can actually experience and plan a fun experience as know-how of play. It is a service that provides highly reliable information under the real name system, provides know-how that only experienced users can know, and information thatcoordinates the way of spending a day, making play more fun and convenient.
- State of Mind — State of Mind is the development and operation of the cloud sourcing.
Takaya Shinozuka is the President, CEO, and Founder at Reiwa Travel.
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Investment focus
- Internet, Local, Advertising
- Seed, Angel, Series A
- Japan
After joining Mitsubishi Corporation, he studied at Harvard Business School. After graduating, he joined Globespan Capital Partners, an independent United States VC, and worked as a director of investment. He started LocationValue after the company's representative in Japan. Joined Google after selling the company to NTT DOCOMO. He served asDirector of Product Development for Google Maps and General Manager for Android. He left Google in February 2018 and started Smartround Co., Ltd. in May.
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Investment focus
- Artificial Intelligence, SNS, Music
- Seed, Angel, Funding Round
- Japan
Portfolio highlights
- Flyle — Flyle provides a cloud based platform for product management helping customers to improve productivity & creativity in product development.
- Sustainable Lab — SusLab is a data bank that uses AI technology to support SDG and ESG development goals and investments.
- Paytner — yup is providing services to support freelance people's funding.The freelance population in Japan has been shown to continue to increase in many Chosa. While working styles are diversified, they are not able to respond to the development of the working environment, and they will develop their business to change the situation where problemssuch as funding, credit, sexual harassment, and power harassment are accumulated.
After joining DENTSU, I initially produced only banner advertising, but it is expected to be active, and I will be able to work on a number of digital campaigns. In 2011, he became independent and founded PARTY with four members. Cannes Lions Young Competition, Japan's Cyber Division, 2nd place in the world. He has received more than 250advertising awards in Japan and abroad. Recent masterpieces include Lady Gaga's life-size hearing aids “GAGADOLL”, “UNIQLO / UT Picks”, “Suntory / Intensive Regain”, “TOYOTA / TOWN”, such as “Shizukita-” all digital campaigns. TOKYO FM Radio “Sawamoto Gonpachi will end soon.” Guest Personality.
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Investment focus
- Web Design, Software, Content
- Seed, Series A
- Japan
Portfolio highlights
- Edoga — Edoga is a VR production and education company. Edoga offer services such as "VR training" and "off-site VR".
- Collectest — Collectest specializes in integrating AI into trading card appraisal procedures that show current market pricing and verify authenticity.
- STUDIO Japan — STUDIO is a development and operation of the next-generation design tool.
Shuuichi Wada - CTO @ alu Japan
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Investment focus
- Reservations, Content, Social Media
- Seed, Angel, Series A
- Japan
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.
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Investment focus
- Content, Sports, Apps
- Seed, Series A, Series B
- Japan, Philippines
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