Japan-Europe: A Rising Tech Alliance

Japanese investments in the European startups and venture capital sector, in collaboration with NordicNinja.

Key findings

• Europe counts 544 unicorns to Japan's 19, or 4.3x more per capita, and that gap is drawing Japanese investors toward European startups.
• European startups raised €3.5B in 2024 in rounds with at least one Japanese investor; since 2024 about 6% of all European VC has involved Japanese capital.
• Deep tech and AI took 70% of Japanese-linked VC funding in Europe in 2024, up from 42% at the previous peak in 2021.
• The UK drew €14.5B of VC funding from Japanese investors since 2019, ahead of Germany at €4.8B and France at €3.4B.
• Japanese corporates and funds acquired a record 15 VC-backed European startups in 2023, then 4 in 2024 and 6 through October 2025.