Startup Japan news
April, May & June 2019
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- Japan: Financial Services Agency to offer cryptocurrency-enabled spot trading
- Japan: Financial Services Authority to require crypto exchanges to strengthen oversight of cold wallets in risk management move around economic growth
- Japan: Rakuten e-commerce giant opens registrations for Rakuten Wallet crypto exchange
- The Cool Japan Fund – aiming to support and promote demand overseas for Japanese products and services
- Japan: Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, the country’s largest bank, boosts funding for Chainalysis cryptocurrency transaction analysis startup by $6M
- Japan: Liquid cryptocurrency trading platform closes funding round, claiming valuation over $1BN
- Japan’s NIKKEI to acquire majority stake in Singapore-based DealStreetAsia, media startup that tracks PE and VC activity across SE Asia and India
- Japan: Mitsui OSK Lines tankers to gain navigation boost using augmented reality technology, another step towards autonomous shipping
- Japan: Taxis trial facial recognition to target ads based on a riders’ gender, age and more
- Japan: Grooves HR tech startup raises $3M to connect global hospitality and tourism talent with opportunities in Japan
- Japan: Resona Bank discontinues collaboration with MoneyTap payment app in favour of native brand apps
- Japan: SoftBank conglomerate to add $15BN to already-huge $100BN Vision Fund; considering capital for a second tech fund
- Society 5.0: Japan’s future with robots and AI
- Japan: India’s Oyo announces joint venture with SoftBank to launch hotel business
- Japan: LinePay aiming to invest $180M this year in AI and blockchain aiming to become all-in-one super-app
- Japan: China’s Alipay expands mobile payments to 300K retailers in Japan with goal of taking advantage of 2020 Olympics tourist traffic
- Japan’s LINE messenger platform aiming for transition from single-purpose to super-app, with Thailand as testing ground
- Japan: Toyota partners University of Tokyo and TRENDE renewable energy retailer to test peer-to-peer electricity trading using blockchain
- Japan External Trade Organization and PROJECT NIPPON sign MOU around business matching of overseas startups and Japanese companies
- Japan: Campfire crowdfunding platform operator backed for $20M, in part by Global Brain VC
- An overview of Japan’s ‘Society 5.0’ initiative, a transformation potentially more radical than any the industrialized world has seen
- Venture capital in Japan: the current startup ecosystem
- Japan: Tokyo Metropolitan Government launches FinTech Business Camp Tokyo accelerator
- GREE Ventures seed to early-stage startup VC company rebrands into STRIVE, launching $130M STRIVE III fund
- Japan: DataGrid develops new AI system to create photorealistic models of entire people
- Japan: How the country became Twitter’s second-largest market globally
- Japan: LINE Pay partners Visa on new blockchain and digital payments solutions
- Japan: Catalys Pacific launches $100M fund focused early-stage funding of life science innovation
- Japan: A brief collection of the country’s tech and startup-related news headlines from the past month, as reported in the English-language press
- Japan: SAP, German enterprise software giant, to launch its first Asian startup incubator in Japan, with sights set on China and India
- Japan: WAmazing secures near $8.5M with app-based tourism services for foreign visitors
- Japan to allow 4 providers to set 5G base stations on 200K traffic signals, aiming for cost savings for carriers, better emergency services and more
- Japan: Rakuten e-commerce group to partner NEC info-tech group to install 16K low-cost 5G base stations country-wide
- Japan: Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry estimates a shortage of 120,000 AI experts by 2030 as demand for auto-technology and fintech grows
- Japan’s SBI Investment backs UK’s PixelPin startup to £1.5M pre-A for image-based authentication to replace log-in passwords with pictures
- India: Japan’s Incubate Fund to raise new $27M vehicle to invest in early-and-seed stage Indian startups
- Japan’s Incubate Fund India to launch $27M startup fund
- India’s ToneTag sound-based payments startup partners GMO Payment Gateway for Japan market entry
- Japan’s Akatsuki Entertainment Technology fund aiming to invest circa $500K each in 5 Indian vernacular segment startups
- Japan’s KDDI and SUMITOMO prep to enter Myanmar’s mobile game industry
- Singapore’s Vertex Ventures partners Japan Inc for $770M unicorn-focused fund, aiming to match Japanese businesses with promising startups
