HEROZ
5-31-17 Shiba, PMO Tamachi 7F, Tokyo, Minato-ku, 108-0014, Japan
Overview
HEROZ, Inc. was founded in 2009 and our engineer has developed the most cutting edge artificial intelligence, “Ponanza” programme to play Japanese chess 'Shogi', which defeated an active professional player in a public match for the first time ever, in March 2013. Shogi presents a higher degree of complexity than many other strategy games, and has been of interest to Artificial Intelligence researchers.
- Total investments
- 2
- Lead investments
- 0
- Investments · 12mo
- 1
- Active investors
- 6
Sector focus
- Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Information Technology
- Video Games
Investment portfolio
- JPYC
Participated · Series B · Feb 2026
JPYC issues Japanese yen–pegged stablecoins and operates issuance and settlement services for those tokens. The company has been actively raising capital, recently completing an additional close of its Series B that increased cumulative Series B proceeds to about $29.62M. Investors in the recent tranche include a mix of venture funds and financial institutions such as Metaplanet, NCB Venture Capital, Hokuyo Bank and Yokohama Capital. JPYC plans to deploy the new funds toward system and application development, hiring, its stablecoin issuance and settlement operations, and strategic investments. Metaplanet previously announced a planned investment of up to ¥400 million earlier in the year. The articles do not disclose revenue, users, or other operating metrics.
- Turing
Participated · Seed · Jul 2022
Turing develops fully autonomous driving technology originating in Japan. The company is scaling its computing infrastructure and commercial operations as it moves toward real-world deployment. In its Series A and extension rounds the company has raised a cumulative ¥27.89 billion (about $174 million), including ¥12.62 billion (about $79 million) in the recent extension. Turing plans to use the new funding to expand compute capacity, strengthen its business organization for deployment, and hire additional staff. The company’s stated goal is to accelerate realization of Japan-developed fully autonomous driving systems.