The Venture Codex

Participated · Series B · Jul 2026

T2 develops and operates autonomous driving trucks for long-distance trunk transportation, currently running commercial operations with its self-developed Level 2 trucks. The company is conducting safety verification using formal methods and has demonstrated roughly 500 km of non-steering driving on highways including toll-booth passages. From 2024 demonstrations, it has transported cargo for over 50 partner companies, and commercial operations that began July 1 last year have expanded to 23 customer companies. T2 plans to deploy Level 4 trunk transportation services from fiscal year 2027 and is building driver-switching hubs called “Transgate” near Ayase, Kobe, and Nishinomiya by spring 2026. Financially, the company has raised over ¥16.5 billion to date, including the ¥5 billion first close of its Series B, and says it will use the new proceeds to accelerate its business and technology development toward Level 4.

Participated · Equity · Jul 2026

Starlight Engine was established in April 2025 as a group company of Kyoto Fusioneering and is focused on advancing fusion energy through its FAST project. FAST is a privately led, industry–academia initiative that adopts a tokamak configuration and aims to demonstrate fusion power generation in the 2030s by generating and sustaining D–T burning plasma and demonstrating integrated power generation and fuel-cycle systems. The project has completed its conceptual design and is currently moving into engineering design and construction preparations. SLE is coordinating with leading fusion researchers and a wide set of private-sector partners and universities to develop the project and domestic supply chains. The company plans to use newly raised funds to accelerate engineering and technology development, site selection, regulatory processes, supply chain development, and organizational expansion. SLE intends to grow its headcount to about 200 employees over the next two years as it advances toward fusion power demonstration and future commercial plants.

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.

Led · Series C · Sep 2025

Kyoto Fusioneering develops and integrates base technologies required for commercial fusion power, such as plasma heating (gyrotrons), tritium fuel cycles, tritium-breeding blankets and thermal cycles. It is advancing a three-site integrated demonstration program called UNITY, with UNITY-1 (Japan) largely built and executing hydrogen-isotope extraction tests, UNITY-2 (with CNL in Canada) preparing for tritium operations, and UNITY-3 (with ORNL and the U.S. DOE in Tennessee) targeting completion in late 2028 for neutron-irradiation tests of breeding-blanket modules. The company operates multiple global offices (Japan—Tokyo/Kyoto/Shiga—and sites in the U.S., U.K., Germany and Canada) and says it has raised cumulative funding on the order of ¥320 billion and secured over ¥140 billion in order contracts to date. Kyoto Fusioneering aims to scale gyrotron manufacturing to meet growing global demand, strengthen its supply chain and industrialize components ahead of commercial fusion demonstrations, and stated a short-term plan to reach roughly ¥10 billion in sales.

Participated · Series C · May 2024

Founded in 2016, NIHON AGRI operates a vertically integrated business that spans production, sorting, packaging, and export of Japanese agricultural produce, with a focus on Asian markets such as Taiwan and Hong Kong. The company pioneered high-density planting for apples in Aomori Prefecture, achieving average yields of about 6 tons per 0.1 hectare—three times conventional methods. Its flagship export, Aomori apples, reached 2,761 tons and ¥1.58 billion in value for the 2024 Lunar New Year season. NIHON AGRI now works with 700 directly contracted apple growers, roughly 2.3 × last year, driving a 2.2 × increase in supply volume. Beyond its own orchards, the firm runs “Nichinou Pack,” an agricultural entry support program that guides other companies from business launch through sales of harvested crops. The new capital will fund working capital needs and value-chain investments to scale apple exports and expand Nichinou Pack. To date, the company has raised about ¥5.7 billion in equity financing.