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Metro area · Asia

Tokyo

Metro area · Japan · Pop. 40.7M · #27 city by EV

A public taster of the full Tokyo ecosystem on Dealroom — request a demo for live deal flow, founder pedigrees, AI-talent maps, and the full cap table for every company below.

$220B+44%
Combined startup EV
$3.1B
VC invested (last 12mo)
5,992
Tracked startups
#177/ 199
Unicorns per 1M people · cities rank
🦄 Unicorns
18
18 live $1B+ companies
💎 Decacorns
1
$10B+ tier
🐎 Thoroughbreds
52
Top 1% growth · $500M+

Enterprise value · 2015–2025

Tokyo grew 5.1× since 2015

Combined enterprise value of every tracked startup headquartered in Tokyo that's still operating today — public and private companies combined, totalled by founding-year cohort.

0 $75B $150B $225B $300B Tokyo · $240B 2015 2018 2021 2024 2025

Adjacent cities by EV

Startup funnel

Tokyo's power-law funnel

From the first cheque written to a $10B+ outcome. Each arrow shows what fraction of companies at one stage graduate to the next, tracked by founding cohort.

Pre-Seed
1,295
Seed
1,214
Series A
978
Series B
357
Series C
144
Unicorn
18
Decacorn
1

* C→Unicorn and Unicorn→Decacorn rates are derived from current counts (no founding-cohort data); the four mid-funnel rates use Dealroom's cohort tracking.

Notable companies

Top private companies in Tokyo

Up to 20 names per tier from Dealroom's tracked dataset. Decacorns are valued $10B+, unicorns $1B+, thoroughbreds have crossed $100M in revenue.

Decacorns $10B+ valuation 1
Rakuten
Unicorns $1B+ valuation 18
DeNAMercariSakana AISmartHRPeptiDreamAdvasaANYCOLORSmartNewsSMS JapanSansanUzabaseFreeeShiftRenewable JapanPreferred NetworksMoney ForwardPaidyGenki Robotics
Thoroughbreds+ $100M+ revenue 49
RakutenRenesasGA technologiesMercariDeNAMIXIShiftRENOVA JapanIStyleRaksulSMS JapanAnyMindEuglenaMoney ForwardSansanANYCOLORMedleyTimeeFreeeLifull

Academia

Tokyo's academic flywheel

Companies founded by university alumni or spun out of research, plus the institutions producing the most founders tied to Tokyo.

University-linked startup formation
243
University spinouts
901
Total alumni-founded companies
532
Of which startups (<$15M raised)
287
Breakouts ($15M-100M)
82
Scaleups ($100M+)

Vs. similarly-sized ecosystems

How Tokyo stacks up

Peers chosen from the same country (Japan), sized closest to Tokyo by combined EV. The scatter plots growth × current size — outliers in the upper-right are ecosystems compounding fastest.

Combined enterprise value
Tokyo
$220B
$22.7B
$5.5B
$3.7B
$1.6B
$1.4B
$1.2B
$1.1B
EV growth (5-yr ×) vs current EV

Top overview

Japan — top cities

Top cities in Japan ranked by combined EV. Tokyo's row is highlighted.

# Ecosystem Combined EV 5-yr EV growth Unicorns VC invested Tracked startups
1 Tokyo $220B 6.1× 18 $3.1B 5,992
2 Osaka - Kobe $22.7B 9.6× 0 $416.9M 715
3 Kyoto $5.5B 7.7× 0 $353.7M 187
4 Okinawa $3.7B 4.1× 0 $38.8M 253
5 Fukuoka $1.6B 3.9× 0 $13.5M 163
6 Kagoshima $1.4B 3.0× 0 $10M 22
7 Nagoya $1.2B 13.6× 0 $95.6M 114
8 Sendai $1.1B 49.4× 0 $32.9M 135

Sector concentration

Where Tokyo punches above its weight

Sectors in which Tokyo's share of the global unicorn pool is bigger than its overall share. A 5× over-index means Tokyo is 5× more represented in that sector than in the global average. Source: top-hub aggregation across the 18 simplified sectors.

✈️ Aviation
18.2×
1 unicorns · 8.3% of global sector
🦾 Robotics
15.6×
2 unicorns · 7.1% of global sector
🚀 Space
13.7×
2 unicorns · 6.3% of global sector
4.96×
5 unicorns · 2.3% of global sector

Premium analytics

What we don't show on this page (yet)

Sector breakdowns, founder origins, AI-talent leaderboards and live deal flow are gated to logged-in Dealroom users. Book a demo to access the full Tokyo dataset — or see a sample on the Dealroom app.

Sector breakdown
Where Tokyo's unicorns concentrate
Fintech
AI / Enterprise SW
Health Tech
Biotech
Cybersecurity
Consumer
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Capital autonomy
Tokyo's domestic vs foreign capital mix
% domestic VC by stage
Cross-border lead investors
Sovereign-fund participation
Foreign-LP exposure
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Recent momentum
Tokyo's VC investment trajectory by stage
2024 vs 2025 by stage
Round-size trends
Stage-conversion deltas
Quarterly velocity
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Founder origins
Where Tokyo's startup founders come from
By country of origin
Per capita
Top universities
Top alumni-factory companies
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AI talent
Top employers of AI talent in Tokyo
Core AI roles
Frontier AI roles
YoY hiring growth
Senior + lead engineers
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Deal flow
Live deal flow & funding rounds in Tokyo
New rounds last 30 days
Stage breakdown
Active investors
Round-size trends
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