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The Venture Codex

Sumitomo

OTEMACHI PLACE EAST TOWER 3-2 Otemachi 2-Chome, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, 100-8601, Japan

Overview

Sumitomo Corporation is a business services company that works with import, export, trilateral trade, and business investment in Japan.

Total investments
22
Lead investments
3
Investments · 12mo
3
Active investors
8

Sector focus

  • Financial Services
  • Impact Investing
  • Oil and Gas
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Investment portfolio

  • SHINE Technologies

    Participated · Series D · Feb 2026

    SHINE Technologies develops a fusion-based approach to produce medical isotopes such as molybdenum-99, and also plans capability for iodine-131 and xenon-133. The company uses a liquid uranium target that is recycled, which it says reduces radioactive waste volume and operating costs compared with reactor-based production. SHINE has collaborated with U.S. national laboratories for more than 15 years and received technical support and funding from the DOE NNSA. Its commercial Chrysalis facility in Janesville, Wisconsin, is reported to be 75% complete and is positioned to be the world’s largest medical isotope production facility when operational. The recently announced conditional loan commitment from the DOE Office of Energy Dominance Financing is intended to help finish the project and enable market entry. Company leadership and government officials emphasize the project's role in onshoring Mo-99 supply, improving supply-chain reliability, and advancing nonproliferation objectives.

  • Nu Quantum

    Participated · Series A · Dec 2025

    Nu Quantum is pioneering distributed quantum computing by developing the Entanglement Fabric, a modular, interoperable photonic networking stack that links separate quantum processors into a single, more powerful system. Its approach targets the key industry hurdle of scaling qubit counts to reach fault-tolerant, utility-scale quantum computers. The firm has already demonstrated world-first subsystems such as a Qubit-Photon Interface slated for 2024 and a Quantum Networking Unit planned for 2025, and it is advancing research in Distributed Quantum Error Correction. Fresh capital will accelerate product development, expand its multidisciplinary team, and support international growth following the opening of a Los Angeles office and the formation of a U.S. strategic advisory board. Nu Quantum also convenes the Quantum Datacenter Alliance to foster ecosystem collaboration with quantum processing unit partners. The oversubscribed $60 million Series A— the largest pure-play quantum networking round globally and the largest quantum Series A in the UK—provides substantial runway for these ambitions.

  • Monogusa

    Led · Series C · Oct 2025

    Founded in 2016, Tokyo-based Monogusa develops and operates Monoxer, a memory-optimization platform that personalizes drills and repetition to improve long-term recall. The software was first adopted by cram schools and private institutions and is now expanding into public education systems, municipalities, and enterprise upskilling programs. Corporations use Monoxer to raise qualification-exam pass rates, onboard sales staff, and capture tacit knowledge in manufacturing, retail, leasing, and other operational settings. New features in development include automatic generation of learning content from internal manuals and data, as well as sector-specific enablement tools for skills transfer in construction and manufacturing. The company recently introduced "Monoxer Junior" for early childhood learning and plans a university student service that links study with career development, plus lifelong learning offerings for professionals. Capital from the Series C round will fund product development, marketing, hiring, and new business lines. Although no revenue or user figures were disclosed, management highlighted rapid adoption across both education and enterprise markets.

  • Dexterity

    Led · Equity · Mar 2025

    Dexterity builds AI-powered industrial robots designed to perform repetitive and sometimes dangerous tasks in warehouses and factories, such as loading boxes and sorting parcels. Its customers include FedEx and UPS. Founder and CEO Samir Menon says the robots use specialized AI models, each focused on a specific task, coordinated by a central system. The startup's robots are described as having "human-like" finesse. Dexterity recently raised $95 million at a post-money valuation of $1.65 billion and has now raised nearly $300 million in total. The raise comes amid broader investor and Big Tech interest in AI-powered humanoid and industrial robotics. Dexterity builds full-stack warehouse robotic systems combining hardware, software, and onsite deployment to automate order fulfillment and integrate into customers' existing facilities. The company emphasizes integration into current warehouses rather than requiring ground-up rebuilds. Dexterity says its systems have moved more than 14 million items across over 50,000 product SKUs, handling a wide variety of goods from loosely packed polybags and delicate food items to cardboard boxes and trays. It has been working with customers for two years and emerged from stealth in July of last year; its systems are deployed in North America and Japan. The company recently secured new capital that values it at $1.4 billion and plans to use funding to deploy its first thousand robots. Target customers include retail, consumer goods manufacturers, and parcel handling operations. Dexterity develops full-stack, hardware-agnostic robotic systems that use AI, computer vision, force control and touch perception to automate pick-pack and other warehouse tasks. The company offers Robots‑as‑a‑Service and manages end-to-end system design, engineering and deployments with operational guarantees. Dexterity's robots are adaptable, mobile and collaborative, able to pick more than 200 unique items in production with 99.5% accuracy and handle novel objects like plastic bags, glass and perishables. Early customers include Kawasaki Heavy Industries, a global food manufacturer and distributor, and a worldwide package delivery provider. Operators working with Dexterity robots have seen productivity improvements of about 47%, and the company says it has shipped more than half a million units of packaged food during the pandemic. Founded in 2017 and based in Redwood City, California, Dexterity positions its technology to address labor shortages and rapidly scale automation across supply chains.

  • Sharing Energy

    Participated · Series B · Apr 2024

    Sharing Energy operates “Share Denki,” a third-party ownership PPA model that lets homeowners install solar panels without any initial expenditure, with the company handling ownership and maintenance while selling the generated power on long-term contracts. It partners with more than 1,800 builders and other partners nationwide and has received over 24,000 contract applications to date. Beyond the core residential offering, the firm also markets “Share Denki for Biz” for commercial users, “Share Denki FLAT” for zero-upfront energy-saving and storage equipment, and is developing energy-management services. Rising demand for residential solar—driven by new efficiency standards and municipal installation mandates—is expanding the company’s addressable market. Sharing Energy plans to use its latest capital to enhance service quality, accelerate deployment, and design new services and financing schemes so distributed energy can function as critical infrastructure. The firm has previously tapped project finance in 2024 and 2025 and now seeks a more flexible, scalable funding base. Including the Series C first close, cumulative funding stands at ¥26.79 billion.

Team

  • Nobuhiko Yuki

    Managing Executive Officer

  • Shinichi Sasaki

    Representative Director, Executive Vice President

    LinkedIn
  • Toshifumi Shibuya

    Executive Officer

    LinkedIn
  • Masatoshi Hayashi

    Executive Officer