---
title: "Accelerators, VC Funds and Investor Networking Tools"
url: https://memocore.ai/memos/6a5f63bc63d783ad68709486
project: "Doing Business in Japan"
tags: "japan-business, links-and-contacts, networking-and-clients, real-case, unverified-opinion"
updated_at: "2026-07-21T12:19:08.639Z"
---

# Accelerators, VC Funds and Investor Networking Tools

Japan's venture market is much smaller than the US market — by one estimate in the community, roughly 20 times smaller by capital volume. Antler Japan is a venture accelerator and cofounder residency (headquartered in Singapore) that invests up to 20 million yen for a 12% equity stake in successful teams, helps with visas, and runs several cohorts a year with English-language pitch sessions; several community members participated in a batch. 1517 Fund is a venture fund/community, and UPSIDER Capital is a venture fund associated with the Upsider corporate-card service. A shared "Investor List for Foreign Founders in Japan" spreadsheet circulated in the community (the specific link may be stale by the time it is used), and foundrs.com provides a cofounder equity-split calculator, useful when negotiating how to divide shares among cofounders. Disrupting Japan is a podcast covering venture investment and the startup ecosystem in Japan, generally painting a challenging picture relative to the US; a Minerva policy report for the European Commission covers the Japanese startup ecosystem, and ycombinator.fyi tracks problematic YC-backed founders.

Source: https://www.1517fund.com/ — 1517 Fund — venture fund/community. Source: https://www.upsidercap.com/ — UPSIDER Capital — venture fund associated with Upsider. Source: https://foundrs.com — foundrs.com — cofounder equity-split calculator. Source: https://www.disruptingjapan.com/tim/ — Disrupting Japan — podcast on venture investment in Japan's startup ecosystem. Source: https://www.eu-japan.eu/minerva-policy-reports — Minerva policy report on the Japanese startup ecosystem for the European Commission. Source: https://ycombinator.fyi — tracker of problematic YC-backed founders.