Participated · Series B · Dec 2025

CI Partners provides developmental and after-school day services for children with disabilities as well as employment support services for people with disabilities, aiming to deliver seamless assistance from childhood through adulthood. The company has crafted a unique operational model that centralizes headquarters functions while optimizing on-site operations to maintain service quality at scale. Founded in November 2015 by CEO Takashi Iezumi—who drew on personal experience as a parent of a child with disabilities and from roles in corporate HR and welfare-facility management—CI Partners seeks to bridge gaps in Japan’s disability support ecosystem. To accelerate growth, the firm is pursuing a nationwide roll-up strategy, acquiring existing facilities to expand into regional cities. Management plans to allocate newly raised capital to business-succession funds that will finance these acquisitions and rapidly establish a high-quality service network nationwide. While the company has not disclosed revenue or user figures, it positions itself as a consolidator in the fragmented disability support sector. Future plans center on building a "total support" platform that accompanies clients from early childhood development through workplace integration.

Participated · Series A · Mar 2022

Linkage develops workplace-targeted preventive-healthcare technology and offers online clinical services and health-support programs such as Rasika, FEMCLE and a LINE-based chat service staffed by licensed health professionals. The company says it has supported roughly 165–174 labor unions and 1,360–1,550 companies, with a network of about 5.4–6.0 million members. Linkage positions its services to raise health awareness across corporate communities and to address lifestyle disease prevention, mental health, smoking cessation and women’s health. The firm was founded in 2011 and is based in Tokyo’s Chuo ward. Management has established an IPO preparation office as part of its next-stage growth plans. The company states it will use new funds to expand product functionality and hire personnel to deliver higher-quality services.

Participated · Equity · Jun 2021

Japan Cloud Capital, Inc. completed a funding transaction that closed on June 16, 2021. The company amended the terms of the transaction and received a ¥420,000,000 second tranche. That tranche brought the total gross proceeds raised in this transaction to ¥2,170,000,000. According to the filing, the company has raised ¥3,590,000,000 in funding to date. The transaction included participation from a mix of corporate and fund investors, as well as individual backers. Named participants included PE&HR Co., Ltd., Birdman Inc., Nomura Holdings, Voyage Ventures, Iyo Venture Fund No. 6 (managed by returning investor Iyogin Capital Co. Ltd.), Kaga Electronics Co., Ltd., Macbee Planet, Kikuchi Seisakusho, returning investor Sun* Inc., Himawari G5 Investment Limited Partnership (managed by Chibagin Capital Co., Ltd.), Tomohiro Otomi, and other investors.

Participated · Series D · May 2020

M17 operates live-streaming apps such as 17 Media and LIVIT and a talent agency, Unicorn Entertainment. Its core product, 17 Media, enables creators to monetize via in-app gifts and social commerce; in January it processed over $500 million in virtual gifts for 30,000 exclusive content creators. The company says it is the largest live streaming platform in Japan with more than 60% market share and has seen a record number of artists and users sign up during the COVID-19 pandemic. M17 plans to use new funding to drive growth in Japan and expand into the United States, the Middle East and other regions, with a gradual LIVIT rollout in the U.S. over the next two years. The company previously cancelled a planned New York Stock Exchange IPO in June 2018 and has continued to raise private funding. The new capital is intended to support product rollouts, geographic expansion and further user acquisition. M17 is a Taiwanese live-streaming company that also offers dating via Paktor (which merged with M17 last year) and has launched short-video app PiePie and a U.S. streaming app called LiveAF. The company says it will use new capital to fund growth initiatives including infrastructure and feature development, resources and training, and expansion into the U.S. M17 said it is on target to book $170 million in sales for the year, up from $79.5 million in 2017, but reported an overall loss of $36.4 million for that year. In Q1 2018 the company reported $37.9 million in revenue and a $24.8 million loss, per its listing document. At the time of its IPO filing M17 reported $31.4 million in cash and cash equivalents, and the article notes finances were tight. The company has about 600 employees across seven offices in Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, the U.S., and Malaysia. M17 is a Taiwan-based company that operates a live-streaming platform and a data app business, and also runs dating services via its merger with Singapore-based Paktor. The company monetizes by selling virtual gifts to viewers who give them to streaming artists; dating services account for under 10% of revenue. Revenue surged 3.2X year-on-year, but M17 reported a negative $24.8 million loss in the first three months of 2018 and had $31.4 million in cash and cash equivalents. Active user growth was stagnant and revenue is highly concentrated: the top 10 users generated 12% of all revenue (about $447,220 per user in Q1 2018), the top 500 users produced the majority of revenue, and the top 100 streamers captured over one-third of artist income. M17 had pursued a U.S. IPO that was scaled down from an original $115 million target to around $60 million, but the NYSE listing was halted due to "settlement issues" after shares priced at $8. The company will remain private after taking a $35 million injection from existing backers, but it will need a clear Plan B to extend runway and address losses and user-growth challenges.