Since participating in the JPY 1.5bn raise of TRUSTDOCK, which we covered in last week’s Japan FinTech Observer, the team at the Sony Innovation Fund has been busy deploying further capital. We have counted four more investments. Given that Sony announced at its investor day that it intends to spin…

EX in the new fund’s name stands for energy transformation, signaling the focus for Fund EX1 on investing in early-stage energy, cleantech, and climate technology startups in the U.S. and Europe Fund EX1 is TDK Ventures’ first multi-LP fund and marks its first foray into Europe TDK Corporation announced that…

DG Daiwa Ventures (DGDV) announced its investment in three Generative AI startups out of the recently held Y Combinator (YC) W23 batch demo day that provide innovative solutions for programming, LLM utilization in companies, and 3D content production. With less than two percent of YC applicants actually making it to…

How green is Japan, and how is its green finance industry doing? We took a look at two studies that were published in the spring, the MIT Green Future Index covering the former, and the Z/Yen Global Green Finance Index covering the latter. Amazingly, the direction of travel is in…

This subsidy program aims to support foreign financial companies to establish a new business location in Osaka by subsidizing their expenses for conducting a preliminary survey or establishing a business location. The term “foreign financial companies, etc.,” denotes companies that are among the type of FinTech business approved by the…

Smartpay, which provides deferred payment services, is the first Japanese company to receive the “Fastest Growing Fintech Asia 2023 Award,” sponsored by Global Financial Market Review (GFM Review), a London-based authoritative online news aggregator providing comprehensive coverage of global financial news and services. Japanese digital payments pioneer Smartpay was recognized…

Saison Asset Management announced today that it has entered into a financial services intermediary agreement with Habitto for two of their mutual funds, the “Global Balance Fund” and the “Asset Formation Expert Fund”. Since its establishment in March 2007, Saison Asset Management has been committed to supporting the financial independence…

As we have briefly stated in the Japan FinTech Observer last weekend, Sony held its “Corporate Strategy Meeting” and announced its intention to spin off the Financial Services business. …

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), the leading post-trade market infrastructure for the global financial services industry, announced its collaboration with Nomura Research Institute (NRI) to provide automated central matching capabilities for cash securities transactions in Japan. NRI provides various financial services to Japan’s financial services firms. Through this…