UPSIDER Establishes Venture Debt Fund "UPSIDER BLUE DREAM Growth Fund 2"
UPSIDER Capital Corporation, a subsidiary of UPSIDER Corporation, has completed the final close of the second fund "UPSIDER BLUE DREAM Growth Fund 2", within the venture debt fund "UPSIDER BLUE DREAM Fund" operated as a joint venture with Mizuho Financial Group.
This Fund includes participation from multiple new investors including regional financial institutions and insurance companies in addition to Mizuho FG, and has begun operations with a total scale of 14.3 billion yen. Combined with the first fund established in December 2023, the cumulative total fund amount reaches 24.3 billion yen, making it the largest scale independent venture debt fund in Japan.
Background of This Fund Establishment and Results of Fund
In December 2023, UPSIDER Capital established the venture debt fund "UPSIDER BLUE DREAM Fund" targeting growth-stage startups as a joint venture with Mizuho FG.
Since the establishment of the first fund, UPSIDER Capital has been building technology-based solutions to address funding and lending operational challenges faced by both startups and financial institutions.
Specifically, UPSIDER Capital has built a review and decision-making system with an average of within 10 business days using UPSIDER's proprietary cash flow prediction technology and a credit model that considers business growth potential.
Furthermore, UPSIDER Capital has achieved advanced monitoring using real-time cash flow data obtained through banking APIs and automatic alert functions. This enables more proactive capital supply, providing loans up to 1 billion yen in scale.
This Fund has begun operations with advance funding from some investors, and combined with Fund 1, lending results as of the end of May 2025 have reached over 13 billion yen cumulative. This represents the largest execution scale for an independent venture debt fund in Japan.
In addition to UPSIDER Capital's track record being highly evaluated by financial institutions, and with continued strong demand from startups, the firm has established this Fund to provide options to even more growth companies.
New Investors Participating This Time: Toward a Broadly Open Startup Financial Infrastructure
In this Fund, Mizuho FG continues to participate as a core investor from Fund 1, while the following financial institutions and institutional investors have newly joined as LP investors (in no particular order):
- Kyoto Capital Partners
- San-in Godo Bank
- Nagoya Bank
- Hiroshima Bank
- Fukuoka Bank
- Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance
- Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank
This realizes collaboration with financial institutions of different business types including city banks, regional banks, and insurance companies, and UPSIDER Capital will proceed with establishing a system not only as a fund's capital supply function but also as an open financial infrastructure regardless of region or industry.
Future Prospects
In establishing this Fund, UPSIDER Capital's AI-based cash flow prediction and real-time data monitoring system have been evaluated, and in addition to Mizuho FG, various financial institutions including regional banks, trust banks, and insurance companies have participated.
Such participation represents not only strengthening startup support, but also a common recognition that structural transformation is required for traditional lending models amid progressing social issues such as population decline and labor shortages, and an expression of expectations for this initiative.
UPSIDER Capital will explore and expand new ways of providing capital in collaboration not only with startups but also with SMEs that continue to challenge themselves and financial institutions.
Starting with this Fund, UPSIDER Capital aims to build an open lending platform that supports all of Japan and establish next-generation financial standards.
Norbert Gehrke
