The Venture Codex Logo

The Venture Codex

World Innovation Lab

636 Waverley St. Suite 100, Palo Alto, CA, 94301, United States

Overview

WiL (World Innovation Lab) is a venture capital firm that partners with leading global corporations and government entities in Japan and Asia. With offices in Palo Alto, California, and Tokyo, the firm’s mission is to serve as a bridge between startups and corporations in the United States and Asia, with a particular focus on Japan. WiL supports its portfolio companies by establishing corporate partnerships that enable U.S. and European startups to scale globally, and Japanese startups to innovate and globalize. WiL invests in emerging technology spanning fintech, insurtech, automation and productivity, cybersecurity, cloud infrastructure, developer tools, health tech and sustainability. Notable WiL investments that have exited to public markets from Fund I and Fund II include Asana, Mercari, Raksul, Wise and Auth0 — whose acquisition by Okta was completed in May 2021. WiL also invests in exceptional venture funds, and supports its LPs in corporate venture investment efforts. WiL also works with its corporate investors on evolving their own innovation capabilities through new business creation, partnerships with leading startups, and organizational culture change. WiL acts as the bridge between startups and corporates across key innovation hubs around the globe in driving growth - starting with Japan and the US.

Total investments
80
Lead investments
18
Investments · 12mo
9
Active investors
9

Sector focus

  • Finance
  • Financial Services
  • Venture Capital
Visit website

Investment portfolio

  • Lovable

    Participated · Series C · Aug 2026

    Lovable is a vibe-coding startup that hosts 60 million projects and attracts 900 million monthly visitors. The company reported a $500 million annualized run rate in June. It offers its own in-house trained AI model in addition to frontier model options and has increased backend capacity and technical sophistication as it has scaled. Lovable signed a multiyear deal with Google Cloud, which the company says led to a fivefold increase in usage. The startup has also invested in other European startups such as Danish company Atech. Recent funding rounds have significantly increased its valuation and capital base.

  • KnowledgeWork

    Participated · Series C · Aug 2026

    KnowledgeWork is a Japanese sales enablement company that has moved from a SaaS knowledge-sharing platform for sales teams into a provider of sales-specific AI agents for large enterprises. It sells three lines: Sales AX Consulting, in which consultants and forward-deployed engineers build and operate AI agents fitted to a customer's own sales process; Sales AI Products, including a tool that automates meeting minutes and CRM/SFA entry and a roleplay tool that runs practice sales conversations against AI avatars; and Sales AI Agent OS, launched in August 2026 as the underlying platform, composed of ontology, strategy, AI agent, and interface layers. Its software is deployed at major Japanese enterprises at thousands-of-seats scale, including NTT Docomo Business, Mizuho Bank, and Nissin Foods. The company is pursuing capital and business alliances with large corporates and their venture arms to widen distribution of its sales AI agents. KnowledgeWork was incorporated in March 2020 under CEO Koji Asano and is headquartered in the Azabudai Hills Mori JP Tower in Minato-ku, Tokyo. Financially, the company had raised ¥6.12 billion cumulatively through its Series B in November 2023 and added ¥3.5 billion (~$22.1M) in the first close of its Series C in August 2026.

  • RevComm

    Participated · Series B · Jul 2026

    RevComm offers phone-call analysis AI MiiTel Phone, web-conference analysis AI MiiTel Meetings with transcription and talk-analysis features, and an in-person conversation analysis product MiiTel RecPod. The company was founded in July 2017 and is headquartered in Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo (Marunouchi Building, 28th floor). Its reported capital is ¥935,000,000. The product portfolio focuses on visualizing telephone sales and customer responses and on providing AI-enabled transcription and talk analysis for meetings. The available articles do not disclose revenue, user counts, or other operating metrics. The company has been the subject of prior fundraising coverage referenced in the announcement.

  • Aqua Theon

    Participated · Seed · Mar 2026

    Aqua Theon develops seaweed-based consumer products using proprietary agar-agar methodology to enable scaled food manufacturing of delicate red algae. Its flagship drink brand, OoMee, launched in cans in the U.S. in May 2025 with flavors such as blueberry-elderflower, strawberry-hibiscus, and peach-lemon, and later added fruit-flavored matcha variants. The company reported selling over 100,000 units in its first six months and securing listings in more than 700 stores, including Sprouts Farmers Market, Raley’s, and Bristol Farms. Misaky Tokyo, a seaweed-based crystal candy invented in September 2019, is Aqua Theon’s other consumer product line. Founder and CEO Alissa Miky launched OoMee in 2025 and has guided the company through product-market launch and fundraising. The firm emphasizes precision-based production to manage red algae’s sensitivity to temperature and marine chemistry as it scales.

  • AironWorks

    Participated · Seed · Feb 2026

    AironWorks is building an enterprise cybersecurity platform that tackles the growing wave of generative-AI-enabled spear-phishing and social-engineering threats. Its multi-layered solution combines highly realistic phishing simulations, just-in-time micro-training, an always-on AI assistant for employees, and automated detection that blocks attacks before they spread. The company operates across Japan and Israel, two markets with deep cybersecurity talent pools, and intentionally bridges expertise from both regions. Investors say AironWorks’ approach prepares workforces while simultaneously hardening technical defenses, creating a full-cycle response to human-centric cyber risks. Earlier backing from Salesforce Ventures, SBI, and All Star SaaS Fund has now been supplemented by new institutional supporters. With its latest capital, the team plans to accelerate product development and expand enterprise reach. Although the firm has not disclosed revenue or user counts, the $13 million seed round marks a significant step toward scaling its offering.

Team