A round-up of Japan’s technology-based startup and funding news, gathered from English-language online media in November 2019.
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- Japan: Paidy raises $143M, in part from PayPal, with instant buy-now-pay-later consumer service
- Microsoft Japan tested a 4-day work week in August and productivity jumped 40%, with more efficient meetings and happier workers who took less time off
- Japan: Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group leads 22-member Security Token Research Consortium to develop standards and technology around security token management
- Grab ride-hail giant to partner JapanTaxi and its 70K-strong car fleet to enter Japan’s cab-hailing market, initially in 5 cities
- Japan: Whilst government aims to double ratio of cashless settlements by 2025 to spur labour productivity, Japan’s elderly remain unconvinced
- SBI Ripple Asia and SBI Remit launch the first Japan-Vietnam money transfer service using distributed ledger tech, possibly to incorporate crypto assets in future
- Japan: Google to launch a Startups Campus in Tokyo, with 2020 launch of local Google For Startups Accelerator
- Japan: Google expands in-country HQ in Tokyo with plans for Google for Startups Campus in 2020
- Japan: US’ PreVeil software encryption startup gains $7M from Sumitomo Corp amid growing cybersecurity concerns around 2020 Olympic Games
- Japan: Amazon users in Japan can now use Paidy instant credit provider as a ‘buy now, pay later’ payment option
- ICYMI: Japan’s SmartNews news aggregation app secures $92M funding at a valuation of $1.2BN with partnership focus and machine learning platform
- More on the Blue Dot Network, led by the US, Japan and Australia, and how it differs from China’s Belt and Road Initiative
- India’s startups received $51BN funding inflow from Japan’s investors between 2014 and H1 2019, with SoftBank alone investing $10BN
- A brief intro to the 10 South Korean startups that presented at the recent ‘K-Content Startup In Japan’ event
- Singapore’s Acumen Research Labs takes win at Asian Entrepreneurship Awards 2019 in Japan with medtech focused on blood sepsis detection
- Thailand: Japan’s Infinity Ventures Summit 2019 set for Bangkok, December 2nd, a 3-day event for startups, networking, workshops and more
