Companies
ANYCOLOR: Nijisanji and Japan’s VTuber Boom
ANYCOLOR runs Nijisanji, one of the world's biggest VTuber agencies, turning virtual talent into a fast-growing Japanese export.
Keyword
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.
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.
An honest scorecard on Japan's five-year plan to build 100 unicorns — what's working, what's not, and why it matters for global partners
Japan has fewer than 15 unicorns. But behind the numbers, a new class of deep tech startups is raising bigger rounds and building for global markets.
In the US, 90% of startup exits are acquisitions. In Japan, 76% are IPOs — most of them tiny. The exit ecosystem is finally being forced to change.
Japan is the world's fourth-largest economy but has fewer than 15 unicorns. The structural reasons run deep — but the forces of change are finally gaining momentum.