I get asked a lot about the best way to get involved with Japanese startups, how to connect with other founders in Japan, and for advice on how to start a startup in Japan. I enjoy answering questions and talking about startups, but I am at heart a lazy person, so I put this together to save some time and hopefully provide some value.
This is by no means comprehensive. In fact, we are barely scratching the surface, and with the startup scene expanding so quickly, it’s hard to keep track of all the new groups that are popping up, but the following resources will plug you directly into the heart of the Japan startup scene and help you connect with Japanese startups even if you don’t speak much (or any) Japanese.
This is a very personal list. These are events I attend, the services I use, the websites I read, and people I trust.
Contents
Meetups
HackerNews
There are dozens of startup events in Tokyo, but this is the best place to start networking with Japanese and foreign startup founders. HackerNews is held monthly, and there is usually a good mix of Japanese and foreigners, and programmers and business types. If I’m in town, I usually show up. They also run an active and friendly Slack channel.
Venture Cafe
Venture Cafe is the community arm of the Cambridge Innovation Center, and they they meetup every Thursday evening. Calling Venture Cafe a “meetup” doesn’t really do it justice. They are structured events wit network events. There are usually a lot of CVC and government reps in attendance, and the CIC tie in ensures a steady stream of foreign startups looking at the Japanese market
Startup Weekend
A weekend-long startup simulator, and a great first step if you have never run a startup and want to understand how to create a good business plan and also gain some insight into the stressful team dynamics involved in starting a company. Startup Weekend is non-profit, run by volunteers, and laughably inexpensive for the experience you get. I volunteer as a coach or a judge occasionally. They run a lot of events and the quality varies considerably, but the “International” events are done in English and tend to be quite good.
Startup Lady
Startup Lady is an open, welcoming, international community for women founders, aspiring women founders, and those who want to support them. They have an busy event schedule and an active online community.
Dev Japan
Dev Japan is one of the best, lowest-stress ways to connect with other developers in Tokyo. Dev Japan runs in English, and while their meetups do have some short presentations, for the most part, they are just a group of designers and developers who get together on the weekend to hang out and work on their own projects.
FinTech Association of Japan
FinTech Association meetups have a good mix of finTech startup founders and representatives from larger, more traditional financial companies. You won’t have any trouble figuring out who is who. The site is in Japanese as are most of the members, but they are quite welcoming to foreign finTech entrepreneurs.
Business in Japan
Business in Japan is not just a startup organization. BiJ meetups tend to be casual gatherings of the Tokyo foreign business community, but plenty of people from the startup world attend as well. Everything is in English, so it’s a great place to meet people when you are new to Japan.
Tokyo Tech Startups
Tokyo Tech Startups is a very welcoming group of (mostly) foreign startup founders and aspiring founders. They have a high percentage of developers and designers and people who actually build things. These meetups usually involve one or two early-stage startups pitching to the group, a bit of Q&A, and lots of conversation.
Tokyo Digital Marketers
If your skills learn more towards marketing, Tokyo Digital Marketers is the biggest bilingual meetup of its kind in Tokyo and the membership seems to tilt heavily towards startups.
Doorkeeper
Founded by Paul McMahon, a foreign entrepreneur in Tokyo and now run by Jonathan Siegel, also a foreign entrepreneur in Tokyo, Doorkeeper is a great way to discover bilingual startup events in Japan. I monitor this site closely.
Even More Meetups
The very cool people over at JapanDev maintain a list of Tokyo tech-meetups that they recommend. Most of these are developer meetups rather than startup events, but there is a lot of overlap between those two groups.
Big Startup Events
There are not nearly as many big, international startup events in Japan as most people imagine, but the number of English-friendly startup events is increasing. So why is the number of events growing slowly when the amount of actual startup activity is going through the roof? It has to do with sponsorships and the business model behind startup events that, Antti Sonninen, the former Japan CEO of Slush and current head of Takeoff Tokyo explained in his interview.
Innovation Leaders Summit
Innovation Leaders Summit focuses on connecting startups to Japanese enterprises. There are presentations and discussions, but the focus of the event is startup-enterprise collaboration and networking. ILS is conducted in Japanese and without interpretation, but it is very welcoming to foreign startups who can pitch in Japanese.
City Tech Tokyo
The Tokyo Metropolitan Government launched its big City Tech Tokyo in 2023 event as part of their Sushi Tech program. It’s one of the biggest startup events in Japan and it attracts a lot of overseas startups, and the 2024 event is looking to be even bigger.
Takeoff Tokyo
In 2023, the team behind the massive Slush Japan events got together again to launch Takeoff Tokyo. The annual event is a series of presentations, networking opportunities, and a startup pitch content. It’s mainly in English and has a great cross-section of Japan’s startup ecosystem attending.
Startup Jobs in Japan
TokyoDev
TokyoDev has become much more than a job-board since Paul McMahon started TokyoDev as a side-project back in 2014. The annual International Developers in Japan Survey is one of the best ways to lean about what it’s really like to work as a developer in Japan.
Wantedly
Wantedly has an English interface, but most of the content is still in Japanese. If you speak Japanese this is the place to find out which Japanese startups are hiring and to arrange to visit their offices. Wantedly is a hotbed for startups looking for employees and for aspiring founders looking for each other.
Jobs In Japan
One of Japan’s first and best job sites for people looking for work in Japan. Jobs In Japan is not particularly start-up focused but lists a huge variety of open positions available to those without strong Japanese-language skills.
Jobs for Hackers by Hackers
Fundraising
New founders ask me more questions about fundraising than on any other topic. Unfortunately, this is one of the hardest topics to give general advice on. I put together this Guide to Startup Fundraising in Japan to help you work out your fundraising strategy.
Once you have your strategy together, it’s time to start talking to VCs. If you are comfortable pitching in Japanese, Kei Furukawa’s fantastic master list of Japanese VCs is a great place to start. In addiction, Tyson Batino of the Scaling Japan podcast maintains a list of foreign-founder-friendly VCs in Japan to help you prioritize.
Japan Startup News
- The Bridge provides news and updates on startup fundraising and IPOs.
- Be Bold or italic, never regular is Ikuo Hiraishi’s newsletter and contains consistently interesting insights on Japan’s startup ecosystem.
- Initial’s bi-annual Japan Startup Funding Report is a must read.
Other Resources
Shibuya Startup Support
The team at Shibuya Startup Support can make incorporating your startup a lot simpler. This is an initiative lead by the Sibuya City government, and the team is a mix of staff from the public sector and the startup world. They can help you with the paperwork and explain the details of startup visas.
JETRO
We Americans have been conditioned to disparage just about anything developed by the government. JETRO, however, has put together an amazingly useful site. This is probably your best source of information about the laws and practices surrounding starting and running a company in Japan.
Google for Startups Japan
My team at Google for Startups Japan is fanatically devoted to helping Japanese startups grow and go global. We run in-depth programs, small workshops, and do everything we can to support the startup community. Apply for membership. Drop in and say “hi”.
Thanks for putting up the write up. Its really useful info.
Thank you. I’m glad it’s useful.
Very useful! Thank you so much!!
Tiffany,
Thanks for coming by. I’m glad you found it useful.
Tim
Hi Tim – Excellent resources. It would be good to know, which out of the above is most active? Startup Weekend is being prominent on the global arena and I believe they’re quite involved with the Startup community in Japan as well.
On the startups side, you might also want to take a look this resource of prominent Travel Startups in Japan: https://www.travhq.com/industry/startup-feature/travel-sprint-our-pick-of-japans-10-coolest-travel-startups/
Startup Weekend is very active here. It’s hard to even keep track of all their events. I’ll taker a look at the sites you mentioned. There are a lot of travel startups in Japan. It’s a very competitive space here.
Thanks for these information. These are very useful.
I want to know about start-ups related to Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Block Chain. If you have any information then please pass it on to me.
Thanks
Hi Alok,
Thanks for listening. Stay tuned. We’ll be covering startups in two those areas in the next few months.
Tim
Yeah…thanks. But I am in some need right now. If you can help somehow then it will be wonderful.
Thanks
I am interested to connect with Japanese start up cos mainly in engineering sector to help them market their product in indian market.
Hi Samir,
Thanks for listening. The beltway to do that is show up in person to one of the events listed on this page. Hacker News would be a good place to start.
Tim
This is absolutely lovely!
Glad to be of service.
Hello, Tim. Thank you so much for the useful information.
I am wondering, though. Are there any companies related to the sciences (such as biology, biotech, etc.)? My background is bioscience and I have no experience whatsoever in other professional fields. I have been searching for such startup companies in Japan, but it seems hopeless so far.
Any information would be helpful.
Thanks in advance.
Hi Gita,
Thanks for listening. Sadly there are not many life-science startups in Japan. A lot of it has to do with the lack of long-term perspective amongJapanese VCs. If you have not heard it you, give a listen to the Molcure episode. They talk about how the lack of interest in traditional bio-tech investment made them change their strategy to one focusing on services to pharma companies.
Tim
Hi Tim and thanks for putting together the site. Clearly a labor of love and much appreciated. Looking forward to digging through the past episodes !
Hi Paul,
Delighted to do it. It amazing hime much great stuff is going on in Japan right now.
Tim
Excellent information. Thank you
Good information, all at one place
Ashish,
Thanks. I’m glad you found it useful.
Tim
Hi Tim, great curated list. Thanks for including the Tokyo Digital Marketers as a Meetup.
Hi Jeff,
I’m glad you found value in it, and I’m looking forward to the next event.
Tim
Thanks for assembling this list @Tim and for including Business In Japan in it!
Hi Jason,
It’s my pleasure. I think BiJ is a great resource for people doing business here.
Tim
What’s needed is how to get through to billionaires and CEOs in Japan.
Hi Dave,
The good news is that most of the billionaire CEOs in Japan are pretty active investors. The bad news is that it can be very hard to get their attention.
Tim