Companies
A ranked, opinionated guide to the ten Japanese animation studios that dominate foreign-licensed output. Who owns IP, who runs on committees, and where the real deal flow concentrates.
ANYCOLOR runs Nijisanji, one of the world's biggest VTuber agencies, turning virtual talent into a fast-growing Japanese export.
Japanese green unicorn TBM makes LIMEX, a limestone-based material that can replace paper and plastic.
SmartNews built a machine-learning news app in Tokyo and scaled it into a $2B unicorn with a major US presence.
SmartHR digitised Japan's paperwork-heavy HR and labor administration, growing into a $1.6B+ unicorn eyeing an IPO.
Money Forward pairs a popular personal-finance app with cloud back-office SaaS, building a fintech ecosystem for Japan.
freee turned cloud accounting into an all-in-one back-office platform for Japan's small and medium businesses.
Tokyo-founded Astroscale is a pioneer of commercial space-debris removal, turning orbital sustainability into a business.
Tokyo-listed ispace is building commercial lunar landers, aiming to make transport to and business on the Moon routine.
Founded by ex-Google researchers in 2023, Tokyo's Sakana AI reached a $2.65B valuation with a nature-inspired approach to building AI models.
Mercari turned Japan into a nation of resellers and is now exporting that marketplace model to the US and beyond.
The Japanese game company that owns two of gaming's most beloved role-playing franchises, exporting Japanese creativity worldwide
