Japan market entry is hard.Consumer tastes are different, business culture is different, and market needs can be radically different from those anywhere else. Entering the Japanese market is a challenge for even the strongest and best positioned brands

Japan has one of the longest lived and healthiest populations in the world, and let Japanese startups are playing a relatively small role in the recent longevity-tech boom.The longevity market includes everything from health-tech wearables, to foods and

In the popular imagination, Japan is almost synonymous with robots.While Japan once dominated cutting-edge robotics, over the past decade she has fallen further and further behind the US and China.Today we sit down with Chiamin Lai of Firstlight Capit

Japanese startups is hot right now, and more and more foreign money is flowing in.But many Japanese VCs remain stubbornly outward-looking.Today we sit down with Shri Dodani, who after a series of highly successful American startups, decided that Japan

According to Taro, Japan's logistics industry is on the brink of collapse, and it's hard to argue that he's wrong.Taro Sasaki founded Hacobu with the goal of modernizing Japan's logistics industry. He found few takers for the first few years, and then a

Last month I gave lecture at Globis University on what it takes to build an AI startup today.It's no longer early days for AI, and most founders don't have the connections and resources that drive toady's multi-billion dollar seed rounds. However, as I

Japan's declining birth rate makes global headlines, but most of the developed world will soon be facing the same problem.The real solution involves a lot of social and economic changes, but as you'll see, technology has a huge role to play as well.To

Last month I spoke on a panel about the future of climate tech.I was joined by Emi Naganuma, the founder and General Partner of Apprecia Capital and Richard Youngman, the CEO Cleantech Group, with Michael Matsumura of Scrum Ventures moderating.Right n

For the last 150 years Japan has made a science of borrowing the best ideas from the West and transforming them into her own.The startup world is no exception. Japanese startup culture is heavily shaped by western ideas, but not in the traditional top d

Progress is not only slower in Japan, it is often different.Looking at the numbers, it's clear that venture capital is even more male-dominated in Japan than it is in the West. Our guest today explains not only how that's changing, but how she's changin