Top 50 Social Media Startup Investors in Japan in April 2025

Investor	Social Media Japan investments
Incubate Fund	8
East Ventures	7
Mizuho Capital	7
Mitsubishi UFJ Capital	6
Kotaro Chiba	5
Kotaro Chiba	5
Kensuke Furukawa	4
Genesia Ventures	4
Masao Ito	4
SMBC Venture Capital	4
Daiwa Corporate Investment	4
TLM	3
Recruit Strategic Partners	3
Colopl Next	3
Venture United	3
Ceres	3
Mistletoe	2
Okasan Capital Partners	2
Japan Finance Corporation	2
GMO VenturePartners	2
Shuuichi Wada	2
aucfan Co.,Ltd.	2
Christine Herron	2
Jun Nishikawa	2
Shunsuke Sasaki	2
Kiyoshi Nishikawa	2
MTG Ventures	2
Koki Yabu	2
Hidetoshi Takano	2
Akatsuki Games Inc.	2
Future Venture Capital	2
Quantum Leaps Ventures	2
Komura Fujio	2
ITOCHU Technology Ventures	2
PE&HR	2
Tatsuo Sakamoto	2
Nissay Capital	2
Daisuke Kajiwara	2
Venture Labo Investment	2
Shogo Kawada	2
STRIVE	2
Sansei Capital Investment	2
Suneight Investment	2
Freebank	2
Yamaguchi Capital	2
Yu Akasaka	2
UTEC - The University of Tokyo Edge Capital Partners	2
Nagoya TV Ventures	1
Toranomon Impact Capital	1
Money Forward Venture Partners	1

Incubate Fund is an independent early-stage venture capital that specializes in providing capital to technology startups at the seed stage. The firm built a portfolio of over 300 companies in Asia, taking 12 companies to public and 20 companies to M&A exit since 2010.

Investment focus

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

Portfolio highlights

Kaguoku — Kaguoku develops and provides the AI-based home staging services. It offers a service that uses AI to process interior photos of real estate properties to increase the property's ability to attract customers.
Time Prediction — Time Prediction focuses on development of diagnostic pharmaceuticals, drugs and medical devices for the treatment of neurological diseases.
Mjolnir Spaceworks — Mjolnir Spaceworks desings and manufactures state-of-the-art novel space rockets with efficient engines as well as other space equipments.

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.

Mizuho is the venture capital firm affiliated to Mizuho Bank, the second-largest Japanese bank in terms of assets. The firm has headquarters in Tokyo.The firm has ¥49.6 billion JPY under management, focusing on information technology and biotechnology investments. Over 600 Mizuho companies have gone public. According to Nikkei, Mizuho is thefifth-largest venture capital firm in Japan.Mizuho Capital was formed in 2002 by the merger of Fujigin Capital, Tokyo Venture Capital and IBJ Investment. Three firms were subsidiaries of Fuji Bank, Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank and the Industrial Bank of Japan respectively.

Investment focus

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

Portfolio highlights

Instalimb — Instalimb is the world's first 3D printing prosthesis business.
Penetrator — Penetrator transforms the real estate market with space technology, tackling transaction issues and forming landslide observation systems.
Umee Technologies — Umee Technologies is an IT firm that offers full-stack development, conversational AI, and psychological analysis engine services.

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

Investment focus

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

Portfolio highlights

Ababa — Ababa provides recruitment and employment solutions.
Emium — Emium creates an infrastructure that will be a driving force in dental care and dental technology.
RegCell — RegCell aims to generate novel therapeutic technologies through augmenting or controlling the immune system and our goal is to save patients who suffer from autoimmune diseases and cancer .

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

Investment focus

Information Technology, Content, Internet
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.

Investment focus

Information Technology, 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.

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, 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 — Neighbor is a metaverse game developer that specializes in Fortnite.

Genesia Ventures is a venture capital firm focused on seed/early stage startups in Japan and Southeast Asia. Since it's inception in Dec 2016, Genesia Ventures has invested in over 90 companies in Japan, Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore and the US. Genesia Ventures invests in various sectors: SaaS, marketplace, Media, Finance, Insurance,RealEstate, Healthcare, Medical, Travel, Education, Manufacturing, Construction, HR, Agriculture, Sports, Retail, Entertainment, etc.

Investment focus

Information Technology, Software, Content
Seed, Funding Round, Series A
Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia

Portfolio highlights

Kinish — Kinish is a company leading a revolution in dairy products. To achieve environmentally friendly and delicious dairy products, we are developing a special rice variety that produces milk proteins.
PartnerProp — PartnerProp is a PRM tool with outstanding potential and a wide variety of capabilities that resolves all partner business difficulties.
Conoris Technologies — Conoris Technologies is a staffing agency that offers security check support services for companies.

Masao Ito is a Founder & CEO at User Local.

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.

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

Investment focus

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

Portfolio highlights

Ababa — Ababa provides recruitment and employment solutions.
SALOWIN — SALOWIN is a shared salon where freelance hairdressers can freely provide customer service and service.
Penetrator — Penetrator transforms the real estate market with space technology, tackling transaction issues and forming landslide observation systems.

Daiwa Corporate Investment is a private investment firm of Daiwa Securities Group that has been engaged in overseas VC investments by taking advantage of an extensive business network in Japan and foreign countries, long experience and professional knowledge, and by supporting the growth of a number of overseas portfolio companies and their stockexchange listings.

Investment focus

Software, Task Management, Internet
Funding Round, Series A, Seed
Japan, France, Singapore

Portfolio highlights

Tacoms — CAMEL is a service that allows you to easily manage orders from multiple food delivery / takeout services on a single tablet.
COUNTERWORKS — Counter works is an Information technology company.
Hydro Powtech Japan — Nippon Hydropowtech uses proprietary technology and experience in hydrolysate production to investigate new food applications.

TLM is a venture capital that invests basically in seed rounds, including some Series A startups.

Investment focus

Information Technology, Content, SNS
Seed, Angel, Series B
Japan, United States

Portfolio highlights

Morght — Morght is an information technology service company.
Nanameue — Nanameue creating a new future that makes people smile and has a fun experience. Create your own place by connecting people to people in “nanameue” way.
Hogetic Lab — Hogetic Lab specialize in DCaaS, AI development, and Data human resources training.

Recruit Strategic Partners is a venture capital firm that invests in innovative startups from all around the world. It is a corporate venture capital arm of Recruit Holdings that seeks to invest in education and financial technology, digital healthcare, and infrastructure sectors. It was established in 2008 and is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan.

Investment focus

E-Commerce, Software, Financial Services
Series A, Seed, Series B
United States, Japan, India

Portfolio highlights

Blacklane — Blacklane is the global chauffeur service that offers safety, sustainability, and stress-free travel. Since 2017, the company has been carbon-neutral, combining a five-star guest experience with care for the planet. The customers can book their travels using Blacklane’s mobile app or website.Blacklane was co-founded by Jens Wohltorf and FrankSteuer and is headquartered in Berlin, Germany.
Steady — Home Page Steady Your Income Home Page Steady Your Income Home Page Steady Your Income
ZenBusiness — Start a new business today for $0 or grow your existing business with the ZenBusiness platform. Get to your first dollar faster without the stress.

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

Levellr — Levellr software helps creators & brands to build, manage and monetise messaging communities within existing apps, including Discord & Telegram. Our tools, which sit on top of Discord & Telegram, help our customers to acquire powerful-first party data on superfans, build highly engaged communities & generate tangible revenueopportunities, whilst also providing our customers with community strategy & on-going moderation services to ensure their communities thrive.
SALOWIN — SALOWIN is a shared salon where freelance hairdressers can freely provide customer service and service.
CaseBlink — CaseBlink builds end-to-end workflows with generative AI, processing complex, writing-intensive applications for immigration lawyers.

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

Investment focus

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

Portfolio highlights

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

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

Investment focus

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

Portfolio highlights

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

Mistletoe is a hub for startups and the overall entrepreneurial ecosystem. It specifically provides learning opportunities for entrepreneurs, facilitates startup communities, invests in and supports startup companies and venture capitals.

Investment focus

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

Portfolio highlights

ULUU — ULUU is an ocean material that replaces plastic and actively benefits the world.
Aquaria — Discover how you can secure access to safe, clean water from air using Aquaria's atmospheric water generators.
Funderbeam — Funderbeam is a funding and trading platform that connects companies and investors to buy and sell equity stakes. The platform allows the founders to gain exposure, legal support, a funding manager, or an investor network. It also allows the investors to take control of their investments and trade anytime they want.The company was founded in 2013as a global data platform for startup companies.

Okasan Capital Partners is Invest in early-stage venture companies with unique technologies, services, business models and high growth potential, and middle-rater stage companies with a view to listing.

Investment focus

Medical, Recruiting, Artificial Intelligence
Funding Round, Seed, Series A
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Pittan — PITTAN is a health tech startup that focuses on the development of high-speed analytical equipment for use in the healthcare industry. The company's primary service is to analyze the internal status of an individual's body to promote beautiful and healthy skin. This is achieved through the application of analytical chemistry.PITTAN's services are designed to provide insights into the body's health, which can be used to inform personal care and wellness decisions.
Eco-Pork — Eco-Pork is a co-creation solution farm that supports farmers' food productivity improvement. It is connecting the pig and technology, pork ( Pork ) new business ecosystems ( Ecosystem By building a), in the pork growing demand around the world, to get the most out of the food supply capacity is finite.
Xenodata lab — xenodata lab., In the mission "Technology proposal suggests naturally after five years", in order to make the shape of the future financial industry with novel technology, ideas February 2016 It was founded in. xenodata is a coined word that spells the idea of creating heterogeneous creatures according to data, and by means of thee intelligence created by the data, the meaning to pursue the substitution of human actions to the utmost is put in the meaning.

Japan Finance provides a diversified portfolio of financial services to the small and medium enterprise sector.

Investment focus

Software, Information Technology, Internet
Debt Financing, Funding Round, Seed
Japan, Hong Kong

Portfolio highlights

Rakubil — Rakubil is a software development firm that develops applications and platforms for the commercial real estate sectors.
Tryeting — TRYETING provides an AI platform that integrates various types of software. One of the strengths of the company is materials informatics, a field that applies the techniques of informatics, such as AI and big data, to materials. This approach can significantly speed the development of new materials.
Forest Digital — Forest Digital is a media company that provides video, presentation, animation, and VR production services.

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, Software
Seed, Series A, Series B
Japan, United States, India

Portfolio highlights

Trace — Secure and reliable voice AI customer support agents for banking, insurance, fintech, and more. We integrate with existing core systems and leverage the latest in AI research to resolve all customer calls end-to-end.
Zolve — Best neo bank in India offering international banking & financial services online. Apply for a US bank account, credit card & student education loan with Zolve!
Bureau — Bureau is trust network that facilitates end-to-end identity verification, compliance, and fraud prevention for new-age businesses.

Shuuichi Wada - CTO @ alu Japan

Investment focus

Reservations, Content, Social Media
Seed, Angel, Series A
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Craftie — Craftie is an lesson reservation service.
HACK JPN — HACK JPN is a company that transforms imagination into creativity and builds a natural tomorrow.
rocketa — Rocketa is a news curation and social media platform.

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.

Christine Herron is an early-stage investor and diversity advocate, and co-leads the Intel Capital Diversity Fund while leading investments in early-stage companies. She is responsible for diversity investing across Intel Capital sectors, to support technology companies founded or run by women, underrepresented minorities, LGBTQ, or veterans. AtIntel, Christine's direct portfolio includes 500 Friends (ACQ: Merkle), betaworks, Brit Media, E la Carte, Funders Club, Goldbely, Jelli, Movable Ink, SmartZip, Storenvy (ACQ: OpenSky), Two Bit Circus, and Yummly (ACQ: WHR), and Intel Education Accelerator companies Comprendio, Immersed Games, Sutori, and Vidcode.Previously, Christine was an investor with seed stage venture fund First Round Capital, working with Better Finance, Double Verify, Get Satisfaction (ACQ: Sprinklr), Mint (ACQ: INTU), and Xobni (ACQ: YHOO). At Omidyar Network, she developed the Media and Web 2.0 practice strategy and led deals such as Common Sense Media and Socialtext.At Geocapital Partners, Christine focused on early Internet and network technology, leading Series A funding for AXON Networks (ACQ: 3COM), D-Vision (ACQ: ADSK), FocusVision (MBO), Netcom (IPO: NETC), and ViaGrafix (IPO: VIAX). Christine was also a founder or early employee at GiftWorks (ACQ: FrontStream), Mercury2, and NetObjects (IPO: NETC).Christine earned an MBA from Stanford University and a BA from Columbia University. She is a founding advisor or mentor to 500 Startups, Bullpen Capital, and StartX, and serves on Alonzo King's LINES Ballet Board of Directors. She is active on @christine and a frequent speaker.

Investment focus

E-Commerce, Personalization, Social Media
Seed, Series A, Series B
United States, Japan

Portfolio highlights

Roominate — Playing with the W77 online game site can certainly produce crazy jackpots to riches
Soldsie — Soldsie (formerly Centrally) is a payment system enabling merchants to monetize their Facebook page by allowing customers to purchase through comments.Customers register their payment information with Soldsie, and then comment on stores’ pages, channels and feeds to activate a charge to their account, and initiate the shipping process.Merchants use the Soldsie administrative dashboard track and manage inventory and shipping, and experience increased user comments, views and viral shares.
Tokyo Otaku Mode — The ultimate online destination for fans of Japanese pop culture.

Jun Nishikawa - Co-founder, Executive Vice President, COO @ Eureka

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.

Shunsuke Sasaki - Executive officer @ Jiraffe

Investment focus

Social Media, Content, SNS
Seed, Angel, Pre-Seed
Japan, Myanmar

Portfolio highlights

Hackazouk — Hackazouk is an HR Tech company that operates Official-Alumni.com, an alumni relationship management system in Japan and the Philippines to help companies stay connected with their alumni.
bond Japan — Bond Co., Ltd. is a video learning platform specializing in Japanese language studies.
Linklusion — Linklusion is a system development and management support for microfinance institutions in developing countries

After working at KDD Corporation ï¼ˆCurrently known as KDDI Corporationï¼‰, 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 worldâ€™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 â€œShibuya Bit Valley Conceptâ€ and is well known for his various speeches and writings. He is a graduate of the Department of Education at Tokyo University.

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.

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

Investment focus

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

Portfolio highlights

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

Koki Yabu is Founder, President & CEO at Mobcast inc.

Investment focus

Content, Finance, Data Mining
Angel, Pre-Seed
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Mobcast group — mobcast is a sports entertainment company that operates a mobile entertainment platform for smartphones and feature phones. It supports customers with social game and social media services. The company was founded in 2009 and is based in Tokyo, Japan. Currently, it operates as a subsidiary of mobcast Inc.
SmartApp Japan — Smart Apps is a developer of a blockchain services application designed for smartphones. The company's application uses cryptocurrency technology to offer token issuance, initial coin offering and dApps design support, providing a launchpad for start-up blockchain-related businesses.

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.

Investment focus

Internet, Information Technology, Human Resources
Seed, Angel, Funding Round
Japan, United States

Portfolio highlights

Kaimak — 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.

Akatsuki offers MobileSocialGame services. They utilize cutting edge technology and ideas to realize and deliver their ambitions to their users. They provide new value to society through the services we manage daily. Providing services throughout the world that brighten up everyone's daily lives.

Investment focus

Media and Entertainment, Gaming, Content
Seed, Funding Round, Corporate Round
Japan, India, United States

Portfolio highlights

Hitcard — Hitcard is a trendy card culture brand that uses technology to upgrade card-like consumer products.
Stems Labs — community and platform for collaborative creativity
MetaverseGo — MetaverseGo is a web 3.0 app that offers easy access to Play-and-Earn Games, Guilds, NFTs, and Decentralized Applications allowing users to own assets, connect with industry players, and use their earnings across multiple payment platforms.

Future Venture Capital Co., Ltd. is a venture capital firm specializing in early stage investment. The firm invests in diversified investment in a broad range of industrial sectors. It seeks to invest in Japan. The firm prefers to be the lead investor in its portfolio companies. Future Venture Capital Co., Ltd. was founded in 1998 and is based inKyoto, Japan with offices in Tokyo, Aomori, Iwate, Yamagata, Kanazawa, Mie, Sakai, Kobe, and Ehime.

Investment focus

Health Care, Manufacturing, Information Technology
Funding Round, Seed, Series A
Japan, United States, Myanmar

Portfolio highlights

CoCooking — CoCooking uses food and cooking to create ample opportunity for dialogue and thought, fostering creativity, diversity, and well-being of individuals and communities.
TelaAxon — TelaAxon develops artificial intelligence technology for sustainable operations, enhancing human-AI coexistence, safety, and wellness.
Second Heart — Second Heart is a medical center that offers preventive diabetic care and awareness programs to avoid foot amputations.

Quantum Leaps Ventures establish and invest in internet and technology companies.

Investment focus

Consulting, Health Care, Artificial Intelligence
Seed, Pre-Seed, Series A
Japan, Malaysia

Portfolio highlights

Agatyca — Agatyca is an IT company that develops customized solutions to optimize payment system processes for organizations.
CareMaker — CareMaker is a technology company that develops and operates visit schedule management and regional collaboration cloud services.
Umee Technologies — Umee Technologies is an IT firm that offers full-stack development, conversational AI, and psychological analysis engine services.

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.

ITOCHU Technology Ventures (ITV), based in Tokyo, is the venture capital arm of ITOCHU Corporation. ITOCHU is one of the world's largest corporations with offices in over 80 countries and operations that cover a broad spectrum of industries. ITV's mission is to invest and help build leading information technology companies by leveraging avast array of resources both domestically and internationally throughout ITOCHU and its group companies. The ITOCHU group has a long history of funding information technology companies with successes including Siebel Systems, NVIDIA, Openwave and Aruba Networks. Current portfolio includes, Box, Fab, Ooyala, WHILL, Tokyo Otaku Mode, etc.

Investment focus

E-Commerce, Software, Information Technology
Funding Round, Series A, Series B
Japan, United States, Belgium

Portfolio highlights

Eight Knot — Eight Knot designs and develops autonomous navigation system for water mobility using robotics & AI.
Aeterlink — Aeterlink is a wireless device maker and developer. They applied their technology to fields such as FA, robots, smart houses, and medicine and developed practical level technologies such as elemental technology that can wirelessly supply power.
Quollio Technologies — Quollio Technologies is an IT company that specializes in corporate data governance, SaaS, metadata management, and software solutions.

PE&HR is a private equity and venture capital firm that seeks to invest in incubation, start-up, and early-stage companies. PE&HR primarily invests in the human resources, internet, healthcare, IT, mobile, and social commerce-related industries.

Investment focus

Software, Fashion, Education
Seed, Funding Round, Series A
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Meme — MEME is a money app for parents and children to make money more familiar and simplifies the flow of money.
VIE STYLE — VIE STYLE offers wearable music device and AI technology services.
BEAM Technologies — BEAM Technologies, focuses on developing optical semiconductor devices using special light to offer clean solutions to ecosystem-related problems.

Tatsuo Sakamoto is a Head of Sales, Japan at MOLOCO. He Attended The University of Tokyo.

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.

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

Investment focus

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

Portfolio highlights

AirX — AirX is a management service company specializing in air transportation agency business and travel arrangement business. The company leverages technology to transform the notion of mobility into an unprecedented experience. It also provides services such as CodeShare, AIROS Skyview, and AIROS Air Loss. AirX will create the movement of the futuresociety, sightseeing and the way of life of helicopter, Empty MaaS, Flying taxi, eVTOL, and Next-generation traffic.AirX was established on February 23, 2015, and is based in Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, Japan.
HQ — HQ offers next-generation employee benefits platform.
Doctor's Prime — Doctor's Prime is a technology company that provides is a part-time job information service for optimizing the working style of doctors.

Daisuke Kajiwara - Director, CTO and Director of CHECK Company @ Every Japan

Investment focus

Social Media, Content, CRM
Seed, Series B
Japan

Portfolio highlights

HACK JPN — HACK JPN is a company that transforms imagination into creativity and builds a natural tomorrow.
Jiraffe — jiraffe focusses on Internet service planning, development, and management.
rocketa — Rocketa is a news curation and social media platform.

Venture Labo Investment is venture capital firm that provides financial supports to invested companies at each growth stage.

Investment focus

Financial Services, Internet, Information Technology
Funding Round, Series B, Seed
Japan, Indonesia, South Korea

Portfolio highlights

Castee — Castee provides social collaboration services and also helps with a tool for job requests and overseas projects for creators.
SImount — SImount is a database management system platform that connects all data such as Excel, CSV, PDF. Moreover, It can utilize all the data related to business, leading to higher business efficiency and higher sales.
Batton — Batton is a product-developing company that sells AI-enabled RPA buttons and AI formats that allow papers to be automatically formatted.

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.

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.

STRIVE focuses on investing in early-stage (Seed to Series A) internet and mobile companies. It seeks out companies in Japan, Southeast Asia, and India with top-notch management teams and strong market potential. It is not tied to strategic investments for GREE Inc. and leverages its pan-Asia expertise for guiding its portfolio in an engaged,hands-on role.

Investment focus

Software, Internet, E-Commerce
Seed, Series A, Funding Round
Japan, India, Indonesia

Portfolio highlights

Asuene — Asuene involves in clean power retail business, retail SaaS business, etc.
YOUTRUST — YOUTRUST is a startup to operate YOUTRUST a referral recruitment platform for side-job change.
Testsigma — Powerful cloud-based test automation platform that lets you automate tests for web, mobile, desktop apps, and APIs in minutes. Sign up now!

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

Investment focus

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

Portfolio highlights

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

Suneight is a independent Venture Capital firm that invests and supports business development of all the stages of the venture companies.

Investment focus

Internet, Social Media, E-Commerce
Series A, Series B
Japan, India

Portfolio highlights

Niro — Niro is embedding personal credit products into leading consumer internet platforms. The fintech startup aims to disrupt the consumer lending ecosystem in the country by democratizing access to convenient and hassle-free embedded credit products for 624 million internet users in India.
Aquaconnect — Aquaconnect was founded in 2017 as a full-stack aquaculture technology venture to offer data-driven farm advisory solutions and market place solutions to Shrimp and Fish farmers. As a part of promoting sustainable farming practices in aquaculture ecosystem, we have launched an Artificial Intelligence farm advisor 'FarmMOJO' - a friendlyfarm companion. FarmMOJO's data intelligence improves farm productivity and connects farmers with aquaculture industry stakeholders under its market place. Aquaconnect works with about 3000 farmers in Indian states of Andhra, Tamilnadu, and Gujrat to improve their farm revenues through technology intervention.
Virohan — Virohan is India's leading professional training partner of NSDC, providing paramedical diploma courses in MLT, OTT, HA, etc for 12th pass and graduates.

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.

Yamaguchi Capital Co., Ltd. is a venture capital firm. Yamaguchi Capital Co., Ltd. was established in 1996 and is based in Yamaguchi-ken, Japan.

Investment focus

Apps, Manufacturing, Task Management
Funding Round, Seed, Series B
Japan, India

Portfolio highlights

ZABoooN — ZABoooN is a shipping company that offers crew labor management, movement management, and ship management services.
KOMPEITO — Office de Yasai is an online platform that enables users to order and get vegetables delivered to their offices. The platform’s operations are based in Tokyo, Japan.
Live Search — Live Search provides the real estate industry with online room availability management, property photography, and floor plan services.

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.

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.

UTEC-The University of Tokyo Edge Capital Partners Co., Ltd.. UTEC is a seed/early stage technology focused venture capital firm associated with The University of Tokyo.

Investment focus

Biotechnology, Health Care, Medical
Seed, Series A, Funding Round
Japan, United States, Singapore

Portfolio highlights

Issin — Issin manufactures bath mats that can measure weight and automatically record daily weight changes on your smartphone.
RegCell — RegCell aims to generate novel therapeutic technologies through augmenting or controlling the immune system and our goal is to save patients who suffer from autoimmune diseases and cancer .
Eureka Robotics — Eureka Robotics develop robotics technologies and products to automate the mundane, so that humans can focus on the creative.

Nagoya TV Ventures is wholly owned by Nagoya Broadcasting Network, invests in everything from seed to later stage in companies focused on media, entertainment, video, and internet.

Investment focus

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

Portfolio highlights

Gatari — Gatari is developing an AR audio platform, including the AR camera app Vismuth, which can call avatars in reality.
Petokoto — Petokoto is a media created with pet specialists such as certified veterinarians.
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.

Toranomon Impact Capital provides impact investment in health sector.

Investment focus

EdTech, Training
Seed
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Chipee — Chipee is a social networking platform that enables its users to send digital gratitude in the form of chips.
MELON — MELON creates mindfulness programs using a scientific methodology and provides them in a specialized studio.

Money Forward Venture Partners operates HIRAC FUND, a seed fund specializing in seed and early-stage startups.

Investment focus

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

Portfolio highlights

AiCAN — AiCAN provides system planning and development, data analysis, IT, and consulting services related to child welfare.
newmo — newmo delivers sustainable local public transportation create a user experience (UX) that people may utilize with peace of mind and comfort.
Manpuku Holdings — Manpuku Holdings is a food and beverage company that specializes in sushi, yakiniku, fried chicken, bento, and rice balls.