venture capital
A powerful coalition of 44 Japanese corporations has capitalized Noetra, a newly established artificial intelligence research venture, to spearhead the development of home-grown multimodal foundation models. Backed by a core consortium consisting of Sony Group, SoftBank, NEC, and Honda Motor—alongside a newly announced investment from financial heavyweight Mitsubishi
venture capital
Singapore-headquartered enterprise artificial intelligence (AI) developer Whale has secured a $40 million Series C3 extension, bringing its total Series C funding to $100 million. The injection of capital is earmarked to accelerate the scale-up of its global enterprise AI deployments and deepen platform integrations. The latest funding round
Weekly
Welcome to the one hundred seventy-second edition of the Japan FinTech Observer. Despite an avalanche of stablecoin and tokenization announcements, which are a seasonal phenomenon ahead of the WebX conference, the headline news of the past week is the collapse of payment processor Zentoshin, which is suspected of falsifying
venture capital
SBI Holdings has been the lead investor in a $76 million Series C funding round for EDX Markets, a Chicago-based digital asset technology firm catering exclusively to institutional clients. EDX Markets operates a dedicated trading platform and central clearinghouse designed to provide institutional investors with a highly liquid, low-
venture capital
Decentralized finance (DeFi) risk-modeling firm Gauntlet has secured a $125 million Series C financing round led exclusively by Japanese financial services conglomerate SBI Holdings. The single-participant round, which finalized in June, marks the largest capital infusion for the New York-based startup since its inception in 2018. While
Weekly
Welcome to the one hundred seventy-first edition of the Japan FinTech Observer. All is well with gender equality in Japan. Female lawmakers get two more bathroom stalls. Here is what we are going to cover this week: * Venture Capital & Private Markets: Nudge raises JPY 1.48bn through asset
venture capital
Funds Startups has marked the first close of its "All-Stage Deep Tech Debt Fund" (officially designated as Funds Venture Debt Fund - II). Operating as one of Japan's largest independent venture debt funds, the new vehicle leverages the established expertise of its predecessor to deploy sophisticated
venture capital
SMBC Asia Rising Fund, a $200 million corporate venture fund launched in 2023 by Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation and Incubate Fund , has deployed $12 million to $15 million in follow-on investments across three prominent Indian FinTech startups: Easy Home Finance, Vayana, and DPDzero. According to Rajeev Ranka, partner for
venture capital
M2X, a Tokyo-based developer of next-generation cloud-based equipment maintenance systems, has secured a total of 1.14 billion yen in its Series A extension funding round. The round comprised both third-party allotments and debt financing. Underwriting and lending participants in this extension round included Angel Bridge,
venture capital
Nudge, a Tokyo-based FinTech startup operating the next-generation credit card service "Nudge," has raised 1.48 billion yen in a new funding round. This latest injection brings the company’s cumulative capital raised to approximately 6.5 billion yen. The financing structure stands out for its
Weekly
Welcome to the one hundred seventieth edition of the Japan FinTech Observer. What a night 😢 After witnessing first Japan, and then Germany exit the World Cup, your opportunistic author shifted his allegiance to our friendly Dutch neighbors, only to.....well, as you see, I will likely have to switch colors
venture capital
Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) and its consolidated subsidiary, MUFG Bank, have announced a strategic restructuring of their Indian investment operations. The group will consolidate the operating functions of the MUFG Ganesha Fund—an investment quota dedicated to Indian startups—under Mars Equity and its managed "Dragon Funds"