500 Startups Japan rebrands, launches $45m fund

All members of the 500 Startups Japan team will become part of Coral, including co-founders and managing partners James Riney and Yohei Sawayama, who are assuming the same roles with the new group. The split has been described as amicable, with Coral planning to collaborate with 500 Startups on future projects in the Japan ecosystem.

The debut fund was said to have been raised in about two months and will focus on domestic seed-stage domestic start-ups. According to a statement, several investors from 500 Startups Japan’s existing LP base contributed, including Mizuho Bank, Mitsubishi Estate, and Taizo Son, founder of seed-stage technology investor Mistletoe.

New LPs include Shinsei Bank and J-Power. Institutional investors account for almost half of the corpus. “It has been a win-win relationship between us and 500, but in terms of why entrepreneurs are picking us as investors in the market, it is in a lot of ways because of the reputation we built as general partners,” Riney said, according to Bloomberg.

US-based 500 Startups launched its Japan program in 2015 with a $30 million fund that focuses on seed-stage technology plays and portfolio support through in-house recruiting and public relations. The firm previously operated in the country through a joint venture with local mobile carrier NTT Docomo, which set up its own $500 million VC fund in November.

Coral will continue to manage the 500 Startups Japan portfolio, including space tech provider Infostellar and mobile virtual reality developer Jolly Good, which raised about $5 million last month. One of the firm’s first investments was Pocket Concierge, a digital reservation and payments service provider for the restaurant industry that was acquired in January by American Express.

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• Topics
• North Asia
• GPs
• Fundraising
• Japan
• 500 Startups
• seed
• Venture
• Technology