trading
Bloomo Securities, which provides a US stock investment app, has raised a total of 2 billion yen in a Series A round through a third-party allocation of shares to Global Brain, ANRI, Spiral Capital, Portage Ventures, MUFG Innovation Partners, Angle Bridge, Sumitomo Corporation Venture & Innovation, and Scrum Ventures. This
corporate venture capital
MUFG Innovation Partners (MUIP), the corporate venture capital arm and a wholly owned subsidiary of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), has recently invested in Auxia through the MUFG Innovation Partners No. 3 Investment Partnership. The USD 23.5m Series A round was led by VMG Technology Partners, with participation from
weekly
Welcome to the one hundred second edition of the Japan FinTech Observer. A big thank you to everyone who made it to Tokyo for the core of Japan Fintech Week 2025, and especially those who joined us for our meetup on Monday, the most international participation we have ever had!
venture capital
Akari Hosho, which provides lifetime support and identity guarantee services for the elderly in compliance with national guidelines together with a group of trusted professionals such as lawyers, judicial scriveners, and care managers, has raised 80 million yen in funds through a third-party allotment of new shares, with underwriters including
payments
Episode Six (E6), a global provider of ledger and cards infrastructure, has secured a strategic investment from Japan Airlines (JAL), a longstanding customer of E6 since 2017. This investment allows JAL to contribute to E6’s ongoing success while advancing its financial services initiatives, including JAL Pay, the core payments
insurtech
Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance, a subsidiary of MS&AD Insurance Group Holdings, has invested an undisclosed amount in Coalition, a U.S.-based cyber InsurTech company and a leading provider of cyber insurance with advanced cyber risk assessment technologies. MSI and Coalition have collaborated since 2022 and developed a service,
Insurance
InsuranceDekho raised USD 70m in its latest funding round, co-led by Beams Fintech Fund alongside Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) and insurer BNP Paribas Cardif, which participated through its InsurTech fund managed by European investment firm Eurazeo. This latest funding round comes about a year and a half after InsuranceDekho
corporate venture capital
Hitachi has announced the establishment of the fourth fund of the corporate venture capital (CVC) fund "HV Fund" with a purpose to identify startups with the potential to create or disrupt large attractive markets, anticipate the next technological and social turning points, and generate future growth opportunities. The
weekly
Welcome to the ninety-sixth edition of the Japan FinTech Observer. Here is what we are going to cover this week: * Venture Capital & Private Markets: JAL & Hitachi participate in BeZero Carbon's USD 32m Series C; Z Venture Capital & Decima Fund participate in Vivident's seed
artificial intelligence
Vivident, a startup developing AI-powered character IP technology, has secured $1.5 million in seed funding from global investors across South Korea, Japan, the United States, and Hong Kong. The round included participation from leading venture firms including Hashed, Mashup Ventures, TheVentures, Modhaus (Korea), Sfermion (US), as well as Japan&
ESG
Global carbon ratings agency BeZero Carbon has completed a USD 32 million Series C investment round to enable carbon markets through ratings. The round is led by Temasek-founded GenZero, a decarbonisation-focused global investment firm headquartered in Singapore, with additional investment from Japan Airlines and the Translink Innovation Fund. Existing investors
weekly
Welcome to the ninety-fourth edition of the Japan FinTech Observer. We apologize for the tardiness of this week's newsletter. Let's just say the editorial team has been...decimated. Not by alien invaders (though with this cough, I wouldn't rule it out), but by a