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Over the past few years, the Japanese startup scene has grown by leaps and bounds. Despite the pandemic, Japanese startups have attracted a strong flow of investment capital from both the federal and local governments.
Please read on for a summary of how to connect with Japanese startups, entrepreneurs, and jobs!
Tokyo Dev is a group for developers, designers, engineers and those with related backgrounds in Tokyo, and it is run entirely in English. Anyone can join, regardless of skill level or developer genre.
HackerNews is a monthly meetup for software engineers, designers, and anyone else interested in Japanese startups and technology. This event is a great place to start networking with startup founders from Japan and abroad. They also run an active and friendly Slack channel.
Founded by Tokyo-based foreign entrepreneur Paul McMahon and now run by fellow Tokyo-based entrepreneur Jonathan Siegel, Doorkeeper is the best way to find bilingual startup events in Japan. It also runs events such as Hacker News Tokyo and “Tokyo Rubyist Meetup.
Startup Lady is an open and welcoming international community for female founders, aspiring founders, and those who want to support them. They organize many events and have an active online community. Blackbox has an interview with their founder, Moeko Suzuki:
Moeko Suzuki (Startup Lady) - Blackbox JP
Venture Cafe is a community that brings together diverse innovators — including entrepreneurs, investors, researchers, and students — through a variety of socially-conscious programs. A meetup is held every Thursday evening, and anyone can participate. Venture Café is run by the Cambridge Innovation Center (CIC) in Massachusetts.
Business in Japan is not just a startup support organization — many people from the foreign corporate community in Tokyo also participate in BiJ meetups. All events are conducted in English, so it's also a great place to mingle if you’ve just arrived in Japan.
Tokyo Tech Startups is a very welcoming group for foreign startup founders and aspiring founders. Their page contains the latest list of weekly technology-related meetups, conveniently bringing everything together in one place.
First of all, we would like to draw your attention to the Blackbox events page. This page is updated weekly with startup events that are English-friendly.
TAKEOFF TOKYO founder Antti Sonninen was the CEO of Slush Tokyo, which triggered the start-up boom in Japan. Now he is runs TAKEOFF to produce entrepreneurs who aim to go global from Japan. Check out our report for this year’s event:
Takeoff Tokyo 2023 Event Report - Blackbox JP
IVS is one of Japan's largest startup events, with IVS 2023 pulling over 20,000 participants. Blackbox published this year's event report as an official media partner:
SusHi Tech Tokyo is a large-scale international event hosted by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. It was preceded by City Tech Tokyo in 2023, changing the name to SusHi Tech Tokyo from 2024. At this event, more than 400 startup companies exhibit, and more than 600,000 people attend, including participants from more than 45 global cities.
Japan Dev is a job matching website that connects Japanese companies with foreign developers. The site is entirely in English, so it is easy for foreigners to access. Blackbox has published an interview with CEO Eric and Manami.
Eric Turner & Manami (Japan Dev） - Blackbox JP
The Wantedly interface is in English, but most of the content is still in Japanese. If you can speak Japanese, this is a great resource to find out whether Japanese startup companies are recruiting and contact them.
One of Japan's first and best job sites for those looking for work in Japan. Jobs In Japan does not focus specifically on startups, but it does list a wide variety of job openings that can be used by those without advanced Japanese skills.
In 2014, Paul McMahon launched TokyoDev as a side project. Their annual Japan International Developer Survey is a great way to get a feel for what it's really like to work as a developer.
Blackbox has compiled news from the Japanese startup scene and information on the support provided by various local governments on its directory page. We also post event information on social networking sites, so please follow us on this occasion.
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