• Free Standard

  Participated · Series A · Mar 2026

  Free Standard offers Retailor, a re-commerce operating system that allows brands and manufacturers to create branded secondary-market channels and manage end-to-end operations. Retailor supports creation of brand-specific reuse sites and provides semi-customizable services including product collection, authentication, maintenance, storage, photography, and listing. The company plans to deepen its supply-chain capabilities through collaboration with the Yamato Group to optimize logistics for re-commerce. It also intends to improve social messaging and experience design with support from investor D4V and to expand consumer touchpoints by partnering with Mitsubishi Estate and Mitsui Fudosan to bring re-commerce into physical commercial venues. Founded in 2020 and headquartered in Shibuya, Tokyo, Free Standard has raised a cumulative ¥1.37 billion through equity (including a Series A) and debt financing. The company has deployed Retailor with multiple major apparel brands and aims to mainstream brand-official re-commerce as a lifestyle option.

• Pale Blue

  Participated · Series B · Jun 2024

  Pale Blue designs, develops, and manufactures propulsion systems for small satellites, having demonstrated water‑based thrusters in space multiple times. The company was founded in 2020 and is headquartered in Kashiwa, Chiba. Its core product line focuses on reliable, scalable thrusters for global satellite operators, and it is expanding its portfolio to include Hall thrusters. Pale Blue plans to strengthen production and quality-management systems, establish a production‑technology development site, and scale hiring to meet growing demand. The company will continue R&D and space demonstrations to broaden its product lineup and validate new propulsion technologies. The recent Series C fundraise will support these commercialization and production efforts. Pale Blue is a University of Tokyo–spawned space startup based in Kashiwa, Chiba that researches, develops, and manufactures propulsion systems for small satellites. Its core products are an ultra‑small water ion thruster and a water Hall thruster, both using water as the propellant. The ultra‑small water ion thruster is an electric propulsion system for orbit control and orbital transfers offering higher fuel efficiency than chemical thrusters; the water Hall thruster uses a water‑Hall plasma acceleration effect to achieve high specific impulse with low power consumption. These thrusters are intended for small‑satellite orbit control and attitude control. Pale Blue aims to reduce small‑satellite operating costs, expand launch opportunities, and ultimately apply its technology to deep‑space missions such as lunar or Martian exploration. The company plans to continue development and manufacturing, pursue in‑space demonstrations, establish a production‑technology development base, and strengthen its organization. Pale Blue is a Tokyo-based small-satellite thruster developer focused on water-based propulsion, notably its Resistojet steam thruster. The company tested its Resistojet in orbit in March on a 6U cubesat called Star Sphere, using jets of steam for maneuvering. Pale Blue is building a 2,000-square-meter factory to mass-produce Resistojet thrusters sized for satellites under 10 kilograms and announced $7.5 million in funding in October to start production for customers including Yonsei University. Under a multiphase Japanese government SBIR-3 grant worth up to $27 million, Pale Blue aims to develop water-plasma propulsion and to scale its technology to service spacecraft up to 500 kilograms. The company plans to demonstrate water-fed ion and Hall-effect thrusters, which use electricity and magnetic fields to accelerate propellant, with a demo targeted around 2027–2028 and prototypes due by September 2025 for the first grant phase. Pale Blue positions water as a lower-cost, safer propellant alternative to xenon, though it acknowledges water cannot yet match xenon's thrust performance.

• Sixty Percent

  Led · Equity · Feb 2024

  60% operates a cross-border fashion e-commerce platform that aggregates brands from over 10 Asian countries, offering more than 1,500 brands and over 110,000 items (as of Feb 2024). The site is skewed to Gen Z: roughly 90% of users are in their teens and twenties. The company runs its own cross-border EC solution covering logistics, language, payments and customer service, enabling brands to begin selling globally within three days of contracting. Since its prior funding round in April 2021, monthly GMV has grown more than fivefold and the number of listed brands has tripled. 60% is rebranding as it begins a “second chapter,” planning accelerated domestic expansion, global rollout and broader hiring across executive, product, engineering and marketing roles. It plans to launch global versions of its product (web and app) in early 2024 to evolve into a global marketplace.

No current team members are available.