Participated · Series A · Sep 2024

Recustomer provides a post-purchase experience platform that automates returns, exchanges, cancellations, delivery tracking, and offers a try-on-at-home service to improve e-commerce customer experiences. In roughly two and a half years of operation the service has been introduced to over 200 brands across industries including beverages, food, fashion, interior design, and electronics. The company says it is used by many enterprise customers and has an overwhelming presence in Japan in the post-purchase experience software category. With the new funding Recustomer plans to expand product functionality, strengthen its engineering organization, and bolster sales, marketing, and customer success teams. The company also plans to expand its scope toward pre-purchase experiences to become the market leader among purchase experience platforms. Recustomer was established in March 2017 and is headquartered in Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo.

Participated · Series C · Jun 2024

NearMe runs a suite of mobility services built on proprietary AI routing to enable taxi “share rides” that connect users door‑to‑door. Its flagship product, the Airport Shuttle launched in August 2019, has served more than 700,000 cumulative users as of April 2024 and is available around 16 airports and surrounding urban areas. The company also operates tourism shuttles, on‑demand shuttles for elderly mobility, golf shuttles, stadium shared‑taxi pilots and other regional proof‑of‑concept services. NearMe positions its taxi share model as a “fourth public” transport option to address driver shortages, regional transport gaps and over‑tourism, and it reports strong revenue growth recognized in industry rankings. The business has attracted institutional backers and to date has raised about ¥2.8 billion in total funding. NearMe plans to scale service adoption through marketing, corporate partnerships and expanded collaboration with local governments and partners, while investing in operational improvements alongside group company SmartShuttle.

Led · Series A · Dec 2023

Hedgehog MedTech develops integrated digital therapeutics for headache sufferers, spanning mobile treatment applications, AI-driven diagnostic hardware, and disease-awareness programs. Its flagship assets include the headache management app "Zutool," the newly launched tele-medicine service "Zutool Doctor," and proprietary headache AI diagnostic devices. By connecting everyday user data with clinical care, the company positions itself as Japan’s first end-to-end headache platform provider. In August it signed a basic agreement to acquire Zutool and related services from Bellsystem24, with the business transfer completing on October 31, 2025. Post-transfer, Hedgehog MedTech intends to scale organizational capacity and accelerate new business development while exploring collaborations with strategic backer Medley. The company’s strength lies in its program medical device and digital therapeutics (DTx) expertise, enabling a fully integrated product suite for headache management. No revenue or user figures were disclosed in the article.

Participated · Series B · Nov 2023

FastLabel operates a teacher/training-data creation business and an annotation-tool platform, delivering both outsourced annotation services and software tools to support data-centric AI development. The company offers end-to-end support across the AI data workflow, including managed services and consulting alongside its tooling. Since its formal product release in October 2021, FastLabel reports over 32 million cumulative annotations and more than 6,700 users, and has supported AI development at over 100 companies. FastLabel was founded in January 2020. Financially, the company has been fundraising through venture rounds and recently completed a Series B that increased its cumulative funding to ¥1.675 billion. The firm plans to expand its service lineup into the generative AI area, creating training and evaluation data for generative-model training and selling rights-cleared datasets for generative AI. FastLabel builds an integrated platform for creating AI training data, offering a SaaS that includes annotation automation, quality control, project management, and model training/evaluation. The company also provides data-creation outsourcing, data consulting, and model development services. Its users are mainly large Japanese companies in manufacturing, construction, telecommunications/infrastructure, and IT services; the platform exceeded 1,000 registered workspaces within its first year after launch. Founded in January 2020, FastLabel plans to expand platform capabilities by creating and supplying industry-specific datasets and embedding models trained on those datasets. The company aims to evolve into an AI platform that supports end-to-end development and operations (MLOps) and to use the new funding to accelerate those efforts. FastLabel intends to grow headcount to about 40 employees by next autumn. Cumulative funding now totals ¥525M.

Participated · Series C · Jun 2023

Cellusion is developing CLS001, an iPS cell-derived corneal endothelial cell substitute produced via a proprietary technique to efficiently generate corneal endothelial-like cells. The lead program, CLS001, targets bullous keratopathy and aims to address global corneal donor shortages that leave an estimated 13 million patients waiting for transplants. The company has reinforced its R&D organization and in September 2022 executed a license agreement with Celregen (a Fosun Pharma subsidiary) for operations in Greater China. In March 2023 a First In Human transplant of CLS001 was announced by joint research partner Dr. Shigeto Shimmura, and Cellusion is advancing preparations for company-sponsored clinical trials in Japan and for global trials. Proceeds from the recent fundraise will be used to advance those clinical-trial preparations and to support R&D of subsequent pipelines following CLS001. Cellusion is led by CEO Shin Hatou, is headquartered in Tokyo, was founded in January 2015, and has raised ¥4.5 billion (approximately US$33 million) in total to date. Cellusion develops CLS001, a corneal endothelial cell substitute (CECSi cells) differentiated from iPS cells, intended to treat bullous keratopathy and address the global shortage of donor corneas. The company highlights a simple injection delivery procedure designed to reduce reliance on donor tissue and specialized surgical expertise. Cellusion plans company-sponsored phase 1/2 clinical trials of CLS001 in Japan and overseas and has already obtained approval for an investigator-initiated first-in-human study at Keio University Hospital. The new funding will also be used to expand its Tokyo-based research and business teams and to advance R&D on other pipeline programs. Cellusion is pursuing supply-chain partnerships with Toho Holdings and Toyo Seikan Group Holdings to support CLS001 manufacturing and distribution. Founded in January 2015 and headquartered in Tokyo, the company aims to scale clinical development and global access to its cell therapy.