Top 20 Social VC (Venture Capital) Funds in Japan in January 2026

Investor	Social Japan investments
East Ventures	2
Nissay Capital	2
ANRI	2
FreakOut Holdings	1
Archetype Ventures	1
Makuake	1
Maezawa Fund	1
Taliki	1
Recruit Strategic Partners	1
Startup Factory	1
Hakuhodo DY Ventures	1
Kodansha	1
Sansei Capital Investment	1
aucfan Co.,Ltd.	1
ON & BOARD	1
UNITED	1
Global Brain Corporation	1
Spurcle	1
WERU Investment	1
Venture Labo Investment	1

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

Bababos — Bababos is a platform that allows SME manufacturers to quickly access a variety of high-quality raw materials, from polymers and chemicals to steel and other metal products. This eliminates the need to handle numerous suppliers. The company's platform streamlines the buying process by digitizing administrative duties. Additionally, Bababosprovides manufacturers with flexible payment options that lessen their financial burden and enable them to concentrate on what they do best—producing high-quality products. Bababos enhances the SME producers' supply chains.
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Prefab — Prefab offers cutting-edge AI SaaS solutions tailored for the construction industry, enhancing efficiency, safety, and decision-making through data-driven insights.

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, Information Technology
Funding Round, Seed, Series A
Japan, United States, Ethiopia

Portfolio highlights

Welyco — Welyco is an information technology company.We operate smart restaurant "solto". Utilize IT to realize efficient and diverse restaurant management.
Pale Blue — Water propulsion systems for sustainable space development
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.

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

Investment focus

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

Portfolio highlights

Chorakuchoju — Chorakuchoju is a healthcare organization that tries to avoid isolation by implementing AI technologies and medical services.
Linea Innovations — Linea Innovations is an energy production company that develops commercial fusion reactors with advanced fuel technology.
Strand Therapeutics — Strand Therapeutics is developing the first platform for creating programmable mRNA drugs to deliver precise, multi-functional, potentially curative treatments.

We are spread out into global with our mission "Give people work that requires a person" through our freak'in technology.

Investment focus

Software, Information Technology, Internet
Series A, Seed, Series B
Japan, India, Singapore

Portfolio highlights

Progate — Progate is an online platform to learn programming. Learn to build your own apps and services.
Coco — Coco is a communication tool. They develop software that will help the service sector become more customer-oriented. They improve customer satisfaction by digitizing customer surveys and converting telephone interactions with customers to text chat.
91springboard — Explore 91Springboard, the best co-working company offering premium co-working spaces and shared office solutions. Whether you're a startup, freelancer, or team, enjoy flexible workspaces, modern amenities, and prime locations tailored to your needs.

Archetype Ventures is a venture capital firm specializing in B2B Tech seed and early stage venture investments.

Investment focus

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

Portfolio highlights

Diggle — DIGGLE is a service that provides fundamental management accounting management on the cloud called fraud management. It is possible to reduce the mistakes and man-hours of the fraud management task and easily carry out the fraud management task even if it is not an expert in finance or accounting.DIGGLE covers budget creation work and budgetrecord comparison work, especially in the foreman management work. In the budget creation work, the KPI and the budget are automatically created by inputting the target numerical value to the preset parameters utilizing the budget generator function, while the forecast contrasting work is made up of the financial information, non-financial information It is easy to calculate by simply entering the numerical value, and it is possible to carry out calculation of the forecast contrast.
Dioseve — Dioseve is providing novel possibilities for all life.
Superworm — Superworm is a producer of environmentally friendly and long-term solutions to societal challenges. The company undertakes genome editing research and sells protein powders, biofuels, and organic fertilizers made from superworms, allowing customers to consume insect-derived proteins and biofuels.

Makuake is a operation of various support services centered on the cloud funding platform "Makuake".It is a product production support project utilizing R & D technology.

Investment focus

E-Commerce, Manufacturing, Food and Beverage
Product Crowdfunding, Equity Crowdfunding, Seed
Japan, United States

Portfolio highlights

Now Do — Now Do provides online growth revolution platform.
Wakaze — Wakaze is a Japanese sake brewing startup.
Minimal - Bean to Bar Chocolate — Minimal - Bean to Bar Chocolate is a Chocolate startup

The Maezawa Fund is a joint-stock company that invests in entrepreneurs and organizations whose business themes are “solving social issues” and “pursuing hobbies,” and is based on Yusaku Maezawa’s personal assets. It was established for the purpose of investing 100 million yen.

Investment focus

Laser, Beauty, Social
Seed, Funding Round
Japan, United States

Portfolio highlights

YUKASHIKADO — Yukasikado is developing a business on the axis of nutrition that supports the health of the body.
ARIGATO BANK — Arigato Bank offers financial services, with a focus on solving social issues.
Blue Laser Fusion — Blue Laser Fusion is a commercial fusion company. Blue Laser Fusion is a laser startup to commercialize laser fusion by inventing its own laser and fusion reactor.

Taliki is a Coworking Space Operates Social Entrepreneurs Development Support for Intrepreneur Development.

Investment focus

Cooking, Retail, Children
Seed, Angel, Series A
Japan

Portfolio highlights

AiCAN — AiCAN provides system planning and development, data analysis, IT, and consulting services related to child welfare.
Gab — Gab is a company that works to solve social problems as well as develops and markets ethical products.
CoCooking — CoCooking uses food and cooking to create ample opportunity for dialogue and thought, fostering creativity, diversity, and well-being of individuals and communities.

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.
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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.

Startup Factory is a startup fund that provides one-stop support to startups.

Investment focus

Video, Content, Film Production
Seed
Japan

Portfolio highlights

HARTi — HARTi produces iconic artists worldwide. they are always on the lookout for partners who will bring art to expand the business.
Gab — Gab is a company that works to solve social problems as well as develops and markets ethical products.
Super Galaxy Records — Super Galaxy Records is a company that plans and produces IP that creates new works, and is also a record company that produces and manages voice actors and artists.

Hakuhodo DY Ventures is a corporate venture capital firm.

Investment focus

Media and Entertainment, Health Care, Internet
Funding Round, Series A, Series B
Japan, Australia, Singapore

Portfolio highlights

Emole — Emole is a platform that connects content creators with viewers through short drama content, offering a variety of engaging stories.
Utoniq — Utoniq service allows them to collect the works of the artists they support digitally in the form of trading cards. Trading cards will be collected as proof of support for the creators. It is a brand-new trading card service that is both enjoyable to collect and enjoyable to exchange. They provide a service lineup in order to continually increasefan engagement. They can make flexible proposals based on the needs of artists, creators, influencers, anime characters, and so on.
Wunderbar — Wunderbar provides intellectual property along with branding and marketing services.

Kodansha is the largest publisher in Japan and produces the manga magazines Nakayoshi, Afternoon, Evening, and Weekly Shonen Magazine, as well as more literary magazines such as Gunzō, Shūkan Gendai, and the Japanese dictionary Nihongo Daijiten. The company has its headquarters in Bunkyō, Tokyo. The Noma family—relatives of the founder—continues toown KodanshaSource: [Wikipedia] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodansha)

Investment focus

Software, Media and Entertainment, News
Corporate Round, Funding Round, Seed
Japan, Indonesia, United States

Portfolio highlights

MyAnimeList — Welcome to MyAnimeList, the world's most active online anime and manga community and database. Join the online community, create your anime and manga list, read reviews, explore the forums, follow news, and so much more!
SPORTS BULL — SPORTS BULL is an Internet sports media management company.
Animoca Brands KK — Animoca Brands KK supports the global strategy of Web3.0 for Japanese intellectual property and content (IP) holders such as major publishers, brands, education, sports organizations, athletes, artists, and game companies. rice field. Animoca Brands KK builds and provides a platform that utilizes blockchain technology and provides a mechanism forIP / IP holders to have their own ecosystem in Web3.0 and issue NFTs and tokens within it.

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.

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.

ON & BOARD is a venture capital firm specializing in early-stage investments.

Investment focus

Seed

Portfolio highlights

Herix — Herix is an AI SaaS that streamlines due diligence (DD) and the developer of "Aidiligence."
LobbyAI — LobbyAI provides a wide range of services related to artificial intelligence, particularly around database construction and management.
Linea Innovations — Linea Innovations is an energy production company that develops commercial fusion reactors with advanced fuel technology.

UNITED, Inc. is developing the smart phone app and the advertising technology business.

Investment focus

Media and Entertainment, Content, Information Technology
Funding Round, Seed, Series A
Japan, Nigeria, United States

Portfolio highlights

Nehan — Nehan is a software firm that offers AI bidding information and a media outlet that delivers to local government businesses.
FUNDiT — FUNDiT is an IT-focused M&A and business consolidation company that specializes in acquiring, managing, and scaling IT companies.
Ageless — Ageless is a staffing agency that provides human resources-related services primarily to middle-aged and senior citizens.

Global Brain Corporation is a venture capital firm that invests in companies from seed or early to pre-IPO startups. Global Brain has invested in 300+ startups from seed/early to pre-IPO startups and achieved 25 IPOs and 61 M&As as a result of providing hands-on support services and resources to its portfolio startups. Global Brain hasmanaged a pure investment fund as well as multiple corporate venture capital funds partnered together with tier 1 public companies of telecom, real estate development, financial service, beverages, agriculture food, logistics, and electronic devices.

Investment focus

Information Technology, Software, Artificial Intelligence
Series A, Series B, Funding Round
Japan, United States, United Kingdom

Portfolio highlights

Monogusa — Monoxer is a Information Technology.
Zenno Astronautics — Zenno Astronautics hardware and software products ensure satellite missions are effectively managed, guaranteeing maximum economic returns and responsible use of space.
Counter Culture Company — Counter Culture Company is an online platform that offers K-pop dance classes ranging from beginner to professional levels.

Spurcle is a venture capital firm.

Investment focus

Sustainability, Artificial Intelligence, Agriculture
Seed, Series A, Pre-Seed
Japan

Portfolio highlights

Cell-En — Cell-En is a bioelectricity company that provides power solutions through off-grid power generation.
AirKamuy — AirKamuy is an aviation company that designs and manufactures fixed-wing VTOL aircraft and drones with the help of modern technology.
Zip Infrastructure — Inquiry : https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfDmxd1TpPP331TY4VoRsvn0yWX3Ca5Jd-bfBiuPwvpD2SKtA/viewform

As a pioneer and innovator in venture capital in Japan for the past 2 decades, we are deeply engaged in developing and supporting entrepreneurs and start-ups by leveraging our strategic position as a conduit between government, business and academia.“WERU” is the first research unit in the field of entrepreneurship in Japan established byprofessors at the graduate school, Waseda University in 1993.　“WERU Investment” is the first venture capital closely associated with university research labs, centers and institutes in japan. WERU Investment provides financial services for institutional investors (e.g. Pension funds and Endowments) as a Japanese discretionary investment manager (DIM) by fully taking advantage of these research resources, accumulated know-how and strong network.

Investment focus

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

Portfolio highlights

Synfini — Synfini, Inc., a privately held Menlo Park, California-based company, is a pioneer in agile chemistry. Its advanced, automated molecular discovery platform is transforming drug discovery through integrated neuro-symbolic AI, discovery-focused robotic automation, and world-class chemistry data. The patented Synfini platform includes automatedchemical synthesis technologies from SRI International. As a commercial enterprise Synfini will provide accelerated molecular discovery to drug hunters and pharmaceutical companies worldwide.
Novity — Novity offers predictive maintenance, exceptional accuracy, and cold-start prognostics solutions for the chemical, oil, and gas industries.
Cinderelax — Cinderelax is a makeup video app through which individuals can learn makeup.

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

XDeli — XDeli is a digital application that offers food delivery and meal subsidy service for corporate employees.
Castee — Castee provides social collaboration services and also helps with a tool for job requests and overseas projects for creators.
Batton — Batton is a product-developing company that sells AI-enabled RPA buttons and AI formats that allow papers to be automatically formatted.